Building Suspense

I have always lived alone. Not in a house, an apartment, or anything standard like that. Nor do I live in a palace, a cardboard box, or something else obscene.

I live in a room. It is the only room I have known my whole conscious life. I say conscious because I've dreamed of other places, imagined them up. I've dreamed of cities, parks, lakes...the sky. I can't visualize these things consciously, but when I'm asleep, I can just tell they are beautiful. They are perfect.

My room is a rather fair sized room, twenty meters by twenty meters, padded on the roof, the floor, and three of the walls; there is also a toilet in one corner, and a bed in the opposite corner of the toilet. The last wall has a dark window with an exchange tray underneath it, and a steel circular door off to the side of the window. The most important thing in my room is in the corner immediately next to the window, my desk. It is a rather ornate desk, made of smoothly sanded mahogany, with several book shelves suspended above it with metal supports, and several drawers that I use for various materials.

I receive everything I need through the exchange tray in the window: food, toys, tests, books, essentially everything I need to sustain my daily life. Anything else I need, appears in the room the day after I submit a request for it, but only after I go to bed and wake up does my request come. I have spent approximately eleven years of my life living in this room, the entirety of my waking life has been spent here. I say approximately because there have been several occasions on which the the clock by the window has skipped dates over night. My room smells absolutely dreadful the morning of, but after such a prolonged stay, I've become used to it.

I have lived my entire life without seeing the face of another pony, feeling another pony, or even  hearing one. My textbooks don't even have pictures of ponies in them. The only time I have ever seen a pony, was when I saw my reflection. I gave myself such a fright I hid under the bed crying myself into an exhausted slumber, only to awake, look for a reflection again and find that the glass of the window had been replaced overnight. I didn't know whether to be happy that the terrifying thing was gone, or sad that I couldn't have more time to understand it more.

That same day I was given a survey by the window, it had one question.

What did you see? Explain how it made you feel.

I found I couldn't write anything, for I hadn't truly looked at myself. I had been too terrified by seeing another moving entity in the room -that wasn't being moved by me or supplied through the exchange tray- to notice. All I could remember was a blur, a very bland blemish upon the window. It barely stood out, being slightly darker than the window itself, but also blended with the reflected walls behind it.

Recently, I have been learning about this fascinating thing called 'Magic'. There are few ponies who can perform what is generally called 'Magic' itself, not Earth Pony Magic or even Pegasus Magic, just 'Magic' simple as that. Unfortunately there are only two types of ponies who can control 'Magic', unicorns and alicorns, alicorns being better at 'Magic' because their bodies retain more mana or something like that. Anyway, I found it odd that they would give me this knowledge, for I am a pegasus, not a unicorn or an alicorn. After I took my test for 'Advanced Theoretical Spells' I started to receive items from the exchange tray. I would receive things like little rings, cloaks, or even these ridiculously small cuffs (which I came to learn after skimming the user's manual were 'Mana Flow Inhibitor' prototypes) that look almost like they would barely fit onto a small ape's finger.

I later received another prototype that resembled a little plastic crown with a stopwatch wired to it. It came with directions.

Wear this device for thirty seconds, record the result afterward. Repeat daily.

Complying as I always had, I wore the dreadful thing for months until it disappeared from my room one night. From another pony's perspective, it may only seem like it buzzes a little then stops, but 150 volts of electricity surging through your brain is actually quiet painful. Often times the little meter attached to The Crown of Pain, as I've so rightfully dubbed it, would display an 'err' message. Rarely did it actually display something, but when it did, it was quiet a shock to me that it only said one thing.

YES

I'm not sure what that means, but it was a clear indicator that I had passed whatever test I was being given, as the device disappeared the next time I awoke. That seems to be how my room stays so clean, the magic happens over night, so to speak.