Abyss, Something Amiss

Dash’s eyes opened slowly and with a sting. She could feel she was lying on something hard but fairly warm. She grasped her head with one hoof and thought to push herself up with the other, but didn’t bother.

A single shadow filled over her. Dash looked straight up and found Fluttershy sitting directly over her, face squared into guilt and pain as she looked down at Dash.

“Rainbow Dash, oh, you have no idea how sorry I am for dropping all those apples on you,” Fluttershy said. “It was so careless of me. I really hope you can forgive me.”

Dash’s full attention still wasn’t on her. In a slight daze, she glanced around and found she was in Fluttershy’s cottage. Sort of. After a moment, all Dash could find to say was, “What?”

Every wall was a wildly different color; streamers and balloons covered half of them. Now that she was starting to think straighter, she could smell heavy cinnamon baking elsewhere.

Pinkie jumped into Dash’s line of sight and said, “Surprise! Me and Twilight set up a bunch of different party stuff for you to choose from while you were conked out!”

Fluttershy tilted her head away, blushing, and muttered something that still sounded apologetic.

Dash finally shoved herself up and looked around at the different colored walls of Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight was over in one of the corners, adjusting some more decorations. Dash said, “So, these are all your ideas?”

“They sure are!” Pinkie said.

Dash shrugged a little, head still in pain, and said, “Well, I guess the blue stuff looks kind of cool.”

“No, not blue, that one’s too obvious,” Twilight said.

Dash glanced over at her and raised an eyebrow. “Okay... how about all the different colors on the other wall?”

Twilight looked over her shoulder again and sighed, “Come on, Rainbow, that’s even worse than just blue; it’s the first thing everypony will expect to see. There won’t be any surprise if you pick that.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Twilight, if you want to pick one yourself, go for it.”

“No!” Twilight said, turning around fully.

“It won’t exactly be your party if we do all the choosing for you, silly!” Pinkie giggled.

“You throw every other party in Ponyville by yourself, Pinkie,” Dash said.

Now Pinkie rolled her eyes, chuckling, “Yeah, but obviously I’m not doing that this time, so it’s okay!”

“Fine,” Dash said, eyeing Twilight in particular, “just go with the green.”

“No, no... I think you’ve got to go a little more avant-garde, like maybe this great monochrome arrangement--”

Dash groaned in disgust. Twilight stopped, taken aback, and reconsidered her approach a moment. “Well, that’s all right, it’s not like you have to choose this one. Pinkie and I set up plenty of combinations, too.”

“I dunno, Twilight,” Pinkie said, frowning unenthusiastically. “If Rainbow Dash likes one, I think that’s all that’s important.”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin as she thought. Dash sighed mostly in relief and continued clutching her head. But Applejack, having politely stayed out of the way through the discussion, scooted up to Dash and asked, “So, now that that kerfluffle’s been finished, you feel like you’re at your tip-top again?”

“No!” Dash said, startling everypony. Dash looked around at all of them, brow positively furrowed, and continued, “My head hurts, my wings are starting to hurt, and I’m tired. I’m not feeling up to hauling apples, and whatever Twilight and Pinkie actually want to go with is fine by me!”

Everypony took a moment to react, apparently stunned, and started to look ashamed of themselves. Twilight idled her front hoof over the floor and was probably about to speak, but Dash spoke up quicker, voice starting to break:

“Well, now my head really hurts...”

She collapsed to the floor again.

-

Rainbow’s eyes opened slowly, and a terrible, shining light met them straight on. It moved from one to the other, then back again, before it was finally pulled back.

She saw the outlines of a doctor standing over her, the small amount of color in the room quickly re-entering her eyes. It was Doctor Zui who was holding the flashlight, another sheet under his arm.

“You wouldn’t wake up for some time,” he explained.

Rainbow didn’t reply. She closed her eyes again and grimaced.

“We were quite concerned.”

Doctor Zui flipped off the light and set it on an end table. He raised his sheet and said, “But nothing seems to be wrong physically. You’re still scheduled to begin your new treatment tonight, but for now you can stay here and rejuvenate.”

Go away for fucksake, just get out of here.

The doctor smiled again. Mercifully, he turned and left with it. Rainbow unclenched her teeth.

She pushed herself up so she could sit, leaning back against the bedpost and closing her eyes. She still felt tired, but her mind raced again. All she knew was that there wasn’t a point in trying to escape.

Someone touched her wrist. Perturbed, she glanced to her side and met the stare of a man in the bed next to hers, reaching for her attention.

Rainbow gave no pleasantry, but he grinned sheepishly. He kept opening his mouth before he actually spoke, finally saying, “Hey, uh, hey, I haven’t seen you in here before, because, uh, I’m here a lot because of problems with my body, and the doctors have to, kind of, keep checking on them. The problems. You kind of, you sort of look nervous. But it’s not so bad here, in here, I mean.”

He watched as her face remained low and tight, but his smile remained, and he kept trying to say something before getting it out.

“My name is Salang, I mean, I’m Salang. You can call me that. What’s yours, uh, your name?”

Rainbow looked straight into his eyes, the way she only did with her doctor, and said, “It is so bad here. It’s a prison, and I’m not a criminal.”

Salang chuckled, partly coughing, but the chuckle might not have been any response. “No, it’s not a prison, because they’re kind of, the doctors are here to help us, so all of us, um, so we can all go home better, eventually, when they say we’re normal again.”

“They don’t get that say over me,” Rainbow said, looking back at the end of her bed.

“But it’s not so bad,” Salang said, “well, not being normal. That means you’re special, and I kind of, I like being special. I bet you’re special, too.”

Rainbow didn’t reply. Like Salang was trying to tell her she should even fucking be here.

“But it’s not so bad, I mean,” Salang continued. “I bet I could, I can be your friend from now on, and talk to you when you’re nervous, like you’re kind of nervous now.”

“Fuck you,” he got in response. “Fuck you! Fuck off! There’s not a person here who can help me unless they stop fucking around my head and let me out of here!”

Salang stopped smiling. Rainbow, breathing uncontrolled, kept staring at him as she tried to calm down.

“Just... fuck.”

Salang’s eyes were wide, his mouth not bobbing but hanging open limply. He took a moment, but slowly leaned off his elbow from propping him up and lay flat on his bed again. Rainbow watched.

She looked to the rest of the room, finding nothing and no one else to focus on. She, too, lay back down. She forced her eyes shut and cursed every name she could think of under her breath, getting no more rest.

-

“Still having trouble adapting, I hear.”

Rainbow was back in the leather chair.

Doctor Zui sat across from her, this time with his legs crossed. He wasn’t smiling this time. He said, “I don’t often do this, as it usually hampers psychological progression, but I’d like to discuss your dreams.”

Rainbow smirked. “You’ll really let me?”

He nodded barely and hovered his pen over his sheet. “For the entire session. I want to picture them just as vividly as you do. As you seem to know them.”

Rainbow shifted in her seat; she suddenly couldn’t get comfortable in it. There was a short silence. Low and thoughtfully, she said, “They’re always... chiding me. The good way. Like they want what’s best for me, and they’ll help me get above my problems without dragging me down.”

“And what do they do?”

“They do a lot. One’s a farmer, kind of. She works on an apple orchard. There’s the fashion expert; she even designed a dress for me one time. One is pretty crazy, but fun to be around--”

The doctor’s gaze sharpened. “Delia, what are their names?”

Rainbow stopped dead in her line of thought. “What did you call me?”

Doctor Zui leaned forward quickly. “What are their names?”

Rainbow stared wide-eyed at him for a moment, then turned down to her lap at her idle hands. “Well, there’s... the smart one, who can get annoying sometimes--”

“You know them very well, but you don’t know what to call them?”

“I know their names!” Rainbow said, biting forward at air. “I don’t know why I can’t remember, but I know them.”

Doctor Zui kept his gaze close on her. Dismissingly, he leaned back and jotted something new on his sheet. “Interesting. This seems to indicate these dreams stem from your subconscious mind, rather than your conscious one.”

“They’re not dreams!”

“It means they’re genuine problems you have to work out. Maybe they’re related to your poor real memories.”

Rainbow didn’t respond, but she was trembling now.

Doctor Zui tilted his head at her, studying her again. He said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Rainbow suddenly stood up, fists bundled at her sides, and stared down at the doctor. His face darkened, but he didn’t move. “Sit back down, Dana.”

She snarled and snapped forward, nearly leaping at him. He raised his arms to defend himself, but she knocked straight through them to strike his face. She tackled him and his chair over, tumbling out of it and onto the floor as she struck him again.

Security had already entered the room and were headed to the fray. Rainbow locked gazes with the doctor, pinned under her knees, ignoring all the emotion in his dark, bastard eyes except for whatever she fucking hated. She pulled up her arm again as she screamed, “They’re--not--”

Security had reached her, and she kept punching as fast as she could, pulling her arms away from the security as quickly as they could restrain them.

“--dreams, you bastard!”

She was crying as they eventually pulled her up off the doctor. She kept trying to swing, her arms wide over her head, but security held her back tightly.

The doctor, as Rainbow still looked down upon him, stood back up easily despite his grisly new image. Rainbow’s eyes widened and her mouth creased outward in great, mixed fear. The doctor’s face was scarred: blood dribbled out of his mouth, poured off the sudden, deep cuts in his cheeks and jaw.

The surely half-dead Doctor Zui still wore an amicable face. The smugness in it had turned to something like pity. He smiled again.

“That was still progress. It’s not acceptable behavior, you be sure of, but I’m glad to see you’re willing to react to me now.”

Rainbow swallowed down a sob, still looking upon the unholy damage she had willingly done, but she couldn’t stop her crying. The doctor sighed at her, wiping off his eyebrows as the blood on his chin dripped onto his clean, white jacket.

He glanced sideward at the security and said, “I know it’s a little early, but go ahead and give her the two hours in the cooling room, and stay just outside until she’s done.”

-

Just cold.

Not fucking cold, just cold, regular cold.

She couldn’t move. She was sitting, arms clutched around her knees, her ass probably frozen to the floor. But they really had managed to do something for her. She wasn’t angry anymore. She was terrified.

She was having trouble concentrating. They had stuck her in a small, circular room chilled to something subzero, it felt like. Therapy. It was designed to restrict movement and therefore promote self-reflection.

She had made a mistake, letting the doctor provoke her like that. She thought about just pretending to agree with him so he’d let her go, but she’d still be trapped here. She had to convince him.

She knew their names. She did. Someone must have taken them from her head.

But what if now she was being delusional? She had figured out something was wrong here, but these creatures she kept seeing, the ones like the doctor, what Rainbow looked like, weren’t real. They didn’t even look real.

Slowly, trying to move quicker than she did, she removed one of her arms from around her knees and flexed her fingers, relaxing them. She started moving her thumb opposite the rest.

“Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash, there’s proof here that it’s not real,” her hand motioned as she breathed the words out to herself.

She realized that was a little crazy. No harm in fucking with herself a little. She could almost chuckle now.

She looked back to the door. It looked just as cold as everything else, and she couldn’t quite tell what color it was. She had to focus on something. Anything. All she had to keep going back to was the blood, the ungodly amount she had let pour.

She lowered her gaze and her mouth twitched.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she mumbled numbly. “Pinkie Pie... Fluttershy... Rarity...”

Her expression froze further than the rest of her body. “Applejack.”

It was right there in her head. It was her birthday tomorrow. She would be--all of them, together, they would--

There was nothing else. She didn’t know. She didn’t remember.

Rainbow looked up to the ceiling, the same vague shade as the door. Despite the shivering, her mouth trembled.

She cried.

Oh, fuck, they can’t be right.

She hid her head behind her knees again, soon sobbing for no reason she could think of. She didn’t know how much time passed after that.

The door eventually banged open. The guards grabbed her arms and pulled her back out of the room, putting no blanket over her as they lifted her body up high enough for only a little of her to drag over the floor.

Nothing happened for her. Soon she was laid back down in her normal room, not moving herself from the floor for minutes.

Tears misting over on her cheeks, she finally looked back to her bed. The pillow was still flattened from previous use, the sheets shoved on their side.

She moved herself now, dragging herself over and climbing onto the bed. She pulled the blanket over her lower half and laid her head on the pillow. Now she would escape, the one way no one could stop her.

The blanket was warm, and her head comfortable again. More comfortable than anyone could ever feel, despite the remaining sting in her cheeks and ears.

Rainbow felt herself drifting to sleep. The state she was slipping into was almost ethereal in how clear she suddenly felt, and yet had too little consciousness to understand.

Sleep finally did overtake her.

-

-

-

Nothing.

It was morning again. She felt only sheets around her, barely warm anymore.

She didn’t dare open her eyes. There was no way she could. She just moved her left limb to feel the right, and as a cold sweat beaded up on her forehead, she felt hands, fingers, hair.

She did dare open her eyes. Slowly, frightened, she peeked at her body: not a pony’s.

She did nothing but stare for a minute. The next, she ripped off her blanket to see the rest of herself, a clothed woman with two arms and two legs, those same legs which she used to walk everywhere now.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to be back with her friends now. Her hands rose to her head as she panicked, figuring out what to do, whether now maybe she should just run for it, but no, it wouldn’t work.

Yes, it fucking will.

She jumped up, tripping and toppling out of bed as she did. She struggled back up and ran to the door, heart pounding, but slowed down suddenly. She stopped right at the door, palms rested high on it. She realized something with worse horror than before.

Her pupils dilated, and the panic turned to a numb feeling. The thought stopped racing through her brain, but settled right at the front of it.

What are their names?

Her hands slid off the door, and she slumped down in front of it. She stopped thinking of ways out. Her dry mouth dangled open not because she was ignorant of it, but because she didn’t care.

She didn’t cry. She wore a duller expression than she may ever have before.

-

“I was told by the attendants that you were calmer than usual this morning, during breakfast,” Doctor Zui said. “It seems to me you were thinking long about something.”

Rainbow didn’t look at him. She didn’t look at much of anything.

The doctor said, “I have no way of know if your condition is better or worse if you don’t tell me.”

Rainbow slumped less than usual today. Her arms were crossed, but they lay limp over her breasts. She willingly hid her disfigured knuckles under them, though no one had put any restraints on her.

“I didn’t get to see them last night.”

The doctor perked up, and something turned in his smirkish figure. “You mean you didn’t dream of ponies?”

“Nothing.”

He smiled. “This is excellent news. It’s the biggest stride we’ve had yet.”

He lowered his gaze and scribbled on his sheet. “Your choice of words also suggests to me that you’ve taken a more conscious approach to your problem. I’m so glad.”

No response from Rainbow. The doctor glanced back up at her in the middle of his note taking and said, “Glad for you, I mean.”

She met eyes with him again and he seemed to beam at her, not with pride, but as if he saw his own achievement. He looked back down, muttering, “This truly is superb. I had little reason to expect hearing this today.”

Rainbow didn’t care about what he said. Her mind wandered slightly, for how little effort she could put into thinking.

If she didn’t remember her friends, she wouldn’t remember what good friends they were. That would be a good thing. Maybe they were terrible friends who made her do whatever they wanted to do. Maybe they chided her with spite.

Rainbow stopped looking past the doctor and focused on him. “Just tell me what the second step is.”