I, Banner Overnight, being of clouded mind and deteriorating body write in this journal to chronicle my descent into the sin and filth that surrounds this glittering city of decadence. I come to you, dear reader, from a hotel room provided to me by my illustrious over-minds at the Las Pegasus Review. It wasn't but a scant few hours ago I was sent into this den of iniquity while recovering from a bender. Upon arrival I thought I had seen it all.

There was no way this could get any stranger. I thought to myself as I wandered down the illuminated strip provided for us ground walkers. I was accompanied by my trusted editor and confidant Expo Say who just previously had begun indulging in the biggest amount of acid I think I had ever seen another pony consume. Like a rabid fiend he took an entire sheet and plastered it onto his tongue.

The mad genius knew what that shit did. Hell, he made it! A side business he called it; something that only the strongest of souls should ever do in the drug business world where you’re either in it to win it or you’re just a pud with a chemistry set. Like I said, genius. I wondered to myself if even he knew just what planet he was on as the colour and lights invaded our tired eyes and the “Smiley Time” (as he called it) crawled into his brain like ants at a picnic.

Las Pegasus is one of those towns that by all rights should be raided by police almost constantly. Or at least it would be if the police weren't on the take themselves. That’s why I was thrown into this lion’s cage. My old bosses wanted rid of me and I knew it. Why not throw the old bastard on his ear in a new town with every vice available to him? Why not let him drink, smoke and fuck his way to the grave? To me, that seems the best way of letting a stallion go in this day and age.

It’s my job to get to the bottom of this shithole and uncover the slimy underbelly that this town has. Celestia willing, I’ll have the story of the century and won’t be having vultures picking my bones clean in the middle of some desert. Even worse, winding up in the middle of some grimy prison cell with a bigger stallion wanting to dance with me.

Anyway, right, Expo Say. That mad bastard needed to be pulled off the lamp post he was becoming intimate with. No need to draw unwanted attention. As much of an insane asylum this city was, I wasn't sure they would be used to the foreign animal that was Mr. Say. He was a dark coated breed, his mane and tail messy and unkempt. A stark contrast to my own pale features and withering hair kept hidden away beneath a bucket hat I’d once gotten from a Steers catalog.

Even in this city we had to look like trouble waltzing around the streets. Expo swirling around every lamp post like he was performing a scene out of Neighing in the Rain, screaming at the top of his gruff voice about being king of the world.

“Shut up you idiot,” I said to him, keeping the cigarette holder balanced in my mouth. “Are you trying to get us locked away?”

“Banner, baby, you worry too much,” he said, the raw smell of cheap food and even cheaper whiskey on his breath. “As your friend and your editor, I say we get nice and settled into this town.”

At least I’m pretty sure that’s what he was trying to tell me. Nothing made much sense after my name. Just him babbling about a mare on the corner who he hadn't seen in years and the fact she owed him bits. There was no way I was going to get him to the hotel with my own sanity intact.

It was at that moment I’d decided the best way of going about things. There was only one way to quell a giant like this in his lusting for loose women and pure drugs. Much like tales of old, I had to become the beast myself. It was the only course of action available to me.

His saddle bag was like a candy shop for the morally challenged. Deep within were hundreds of uppers, downers, whizzbangs and whatever the fuck else we could get our grimy hooves on. Then, of course, there was the gilded case at the bottom where Expo decided to put the Smiley Time. I had briefly considered matching his drug induced craze with my own, using his own weapon against him. But to have two of us locked in the same poisonous grip of that drug would tear the universe to shreds, not just this city.

I couldn't remember what I grabbed. It was a technicolour nightmare to any sane individual that I shoved down my throat. When I pulled my head out of the bag the drugs had already begun their magic. My brain was being set on fire and buildings started to collapse around me. I could feel cold sweat starting to mat my body as the world swayed like a dancer. Had the lights always been so bright? Was it only now that I was seeing the true beauty my partner had seen all this time? So many questions with no answers to be had. Only a sudden, perilous realization.

“Dear fucking Celestia!” I screamed suddenly, leaping onto the back of Expo. “Why are we walking on these fucking snakes?”

“Snakes?” Expo shouted in a panic and began to buck wildly. I clung to his neck for dear life as the ground slithered and hissed. His hooves flew in the air, trying desperately to find these deadly creatures. “Get them the fuck away from me!”

“Get a grip!” I said and squeezed on his throat. “Can’t you see their vision is based on movement!?”

“Hey!” a voice, deep and dripping with dark intent bellowed from behind us. We turned to come face to face with what I now know to be a cab driver simply trying to get two morons out of his way on a busy street. At the time, however, it was like looking into two eyes wreathed in flame floating in a shifting miasma.

I felt the sharp vibration of impact rattle through my editor’s hooves and along his body as he kicked this poor cabby to the ground. Despite my hallucinations I could recall feeling a sense of growing urgency. The shapes and sounds around me were becoming clear. Ponies stopping on the side of the road to see what the commotion was about.

Without a word I grabbed my editor and we hustled as quickly as we could towards the Chivon where we would be staying. Like thieves in the night, I pulled my laughing compatriot along the blurred lights that streaked by like running paint. The fact that my mind was a hundred miles away from a coherent thought made the journey difficult. The fact that the street was beginning to crumble beneath our hooves made it even worse. We were two strung out stallions in the middle of a city prepared to devour us. I could feel myself walking onto it’s tongue as if to say I was ready to be swallowed whole and sacrificed to this dark and mystical beast.

The vague familiarity of the word “Chivon” hung in the night sky like open arms to welcome us to this safe haven. After checking around to make sure we hadn't been tailed by Las Pegasus’ finest, I shoved the two of us through the entrance only to have the floor come up and smother me.

Expo was laughing into the deep red carpet we were laying on. I, in the mean time, was going on some sort of spiritual journey as other ponies crowded around us to stare. It was like a traveling circus act, only the clowns were laughing at us. I scrambled to find strength enough to hoist myself back onto my hooves. Good so far, the ground was stable here. I lifted up my compatriot back onto his hooves as well and pushed my way towards the check-in counter.

One of the first things I had remembered ever since I started being a degenerate user of these fine mental expanders was you always had to play it cool. All I had to do was stroll up to the counter and say “Hello, my name is Banner Overnight. I have two rooms reserved in my name and we would like our baggage taken up to them. Oh, and don’t worry about my friend, he has a condition.”

I would have loved to have been able to say all of that. Instead what came out of my mouth was pure and unadulterated chaos. It was like Discord cursed my tongue and snickered in the corner as I tried to assure this poor mare behind the counter that everything was alright. In my haze I pulled my wallet from my saddle bag, attempting to do all I could not to let everything clatter to the floor. From it, I plucked out a simple looking business card and steadily eased it onto the counter. I smiled, or at least my lips moved in directions, and the mare looked to the card.

She flipped a few pages in a book, before nodding. Two keys floated from the wall and onto the counter before me. I slapped my arm down on the counter and slid both the keys and the card back into my saddle bag. I ran an arm around the shoulder of my partner and began to stagger towards the lifts.

It wasn’t until that moment I realized the silence my actions had brought upon that lobby. The hushed whispers of ponies standing around and watching us as I brought my friend along. I turned to look at them just as all of the faces in the room ran down onto the deep red carpet and splashed against it like ice cubes hitting water. I backed away, watching the crimson water surge towards me and Expo. We had to get out of there.

“We have to get to higher ground!” I was certain someone else had said that at the same time. Unaware of my own self-narration, I hastily hit the button as the wave began to grow. Blood red and frothing it looked to drown us!

“Where’s the bellhop?” Expo asked, his glazed over eyes opening and shutting at random.

“We don’t have time for that, this goddamn thing is gonna drown us!” I cried.

Finally the elevator opened and the two of us fell backwards into it. The doors swung closed, leaving the wave of death to crash against the outside. I scooted up against the wall of the elevator as my compatriot looked at the numbers on the wall.

“What floor we on?” he asked, turning an unsteady gaze in my direction.

“Fourteen,” I answered, the paranoia beginning to take hold. I clutched my legs to my body and shrank back into a corner. “These fucking ponies have no idea the sort of danger they’re in.”

“What danger?” Expo asked, the pain of sobriety coming through in his strained voice.

“You know,” I said and leaned forward. To Expo, my eyes must have been ten miles wide and just as tall, about to bug out through the glasses on my face. I clenched my teeth around the cigarette holder and whispered so only he could hear me. “The danger!”

Expo looked surprised, perhaps that whisper had come out a yell. It was hard to gauge one’s volume when it came down to it. Especially when one had taken a pharmacy’s worth of hard drugs. The ding of the elevator arriving had me crawling across the floor to peek out into the hallway. I swung my head around trying to figure out where the room was and where all of the eyes were.

“Will you get out?” a gruff voice came from above. The elevator attendant peered down at us, his magic holding the elevator where it was.

“What if they’re out there?” I asked before Expo tugged me along. “They’re out here, I know it! They want to find me cause they know what I did!”

Expo set me down neatly next to the room I was occupying. He took his key from my bag and moved across the hallway to enter his own dingy digs. I, in the mean time, fumbled with my key. The eyes kept opening along the walls. Those judgement filled eyes all staring at me like a hundred disapproving mothers. My teeth clenched around the key harder, trying to work it into the hole before I heard the click and clack of my room unlocking. I dashed into it, feeling relief to be out of that terrifying gaze.

There are a few things one needs to realize when they’re in the grips of a psychedelic trip. One of these things is that no matter how bad it gets there’s at least a seventy-five percent chance nothing bad will actually happen to them. This fallacy is difficult for the drug user to comprehend because to them everything is a fucking monster. Another is the ability to realize when enough is enough. Another unfortunate train of thought that gets lost in the idea that you must have more. The very thought of the real world terrifies you and makes you dig ruts into your hotel room door, not realizing you let the drugs slip away because you were paranoid about eyes that dotted the walls of the hallway.

There it was. Where things go full circle. The need will more often than not be subsided by the idea of frightening things your mind can’t comprehend, even though it’s the one plastering them all over the place. It was the only nugget of truth I could cling to. With fear in my heart and my head, I did the only thing a stallion in my condition could do. That’s how I came to wake up in the bathtub.

Author's Note

An experiment of sorts being unleashed into the wild. Let's see how this goes.