Amnesia: To Err

by JLB

Rating: teen
Tags: Sad, Main 6, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other, Original Character, Adventure, Crossover
Length: 68289

It is duly expected of one to fix what is broken. To take it apart, piece by piece, and bring it together, to perfect harmony. But when it is done, will harmony be the same? Will you be the same?.. One unfortunate fixer will have to find out.

Equestria has survived horrible disasters and overcome cruel tyrants over the course of thousands of years. No matter the danger, it persevered through the magic of friendship. It is a bright, colorful world, and its pillars are kindness, loyalty, generosity, honesty, laughter and magic.

If so, why is it so empty, bleak and abandoned?

Why do horrid visions plague his mind, pouring through into reality?

And why can't he remember his own name?

Approved by Twilight's Library.

---

Proofread by BookMarkofCanterlot. Without his assistance, this story would most likely have taken a few more... years to come out. Realistically speaking.

Most editing and Google Doc conversion by BLACK M3SA.

Cover art by Squji.

This is a cross-over with the Amnesia game series. Do mind, however, that if you are not familiar with the universe, it is not an issue - the most you will be missing out on is going to be a few references and the realization that the plot of the story is less original than it might seem. In case you feel utterly confused, then don't be hasty in blaming it on the crossover - it probably means that I did what I intended to do. Venturing into spoiler territory, this story does not contain any characters from the Amnesia game series, or Amnesia-related media for that matter. By TVTropes' standarts (I sincerely apologize for the mention, but take no responsibility for the countless hours you are likely to spend browsing it), it is an Elsewhere Fic for Amnesia. Yes, I am aware that links shine through spoilers. Bummer.

In another important detail that counts as a spoiler, the "Gore" tag does not stand for "Torture Porn". This story has significantly less body horror than any of the Amnesia titles. Granted, there are going to be a few squicky parts, but nothing horribly outrageous. Cupcakes veterans will be disappointed.

The dialogue formating has been reported to cause readers severe nausea, anxiety and an occasional death. Unfortunately, dashes ended up being the most optimal choice in the long run. Inner monologue uses quotation marks and spoken lines use em-dashes.

The story is going to be updated a chapter per week, as long as I have access to something that has a semblance of an Internet connection.

Published 2014-08-15 21:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-10-23 21:35:28 UTC

Reality Infrequent

- I am telling you again, it’s extremely important. There’s absolutely nothing for you to lose.

Cold.

- Mister Fixer, you have to listen to us. This is something only you can do. Money will not be an issue, supplies will not be an issue, nothing will be an issue, just do this for us.

Cold and dreary. They knocked and knocked. They shuffled and dragged.

- Mister Fixer… you may not be looking at the problem from the right angle. Who do you think we are?

The door would soon give.

- WHO DO YOU THINK WE ARE?

A strong wind made him shiver. The window swung open violently.

- From the face of our agency, I’m truly sorry, but I fear that ultimately I am not in the position to give you a choice.

The floor was hard.

- What are we, stupid? Think you can fool us? Think we’ll believe you just “tore it to shreds”?

And cold.

- Please, just look out for them. That is really, really all we ask.

He had to get up.

- Look out.

He gasped again into consciousness. The hornet nest that was his mind steadily buzzed in the background as his body regained feelings once again, the primary one being severe nausea.

Urgh…

Pain came a close second.

Where… who?.. - he winced, both from the extended pain in his forehead and from the mental sting this word alone incited in him. Unfortunately, he did not forget.

“Don’t think about it. Nothing is wrong. Focus on the situation. Stone floor, damp air, it’s cold, not the same room, definitely not the same room. Panic later.”

Fixer’s eyes opened. Some five or ten seconds later, they adjusted to relative normality.

There was someone staring right at him.

That someone had eyes grey as smog, a light-brown coat, a short, dull mane dyed weak hazel, several streaks of lightning-blue spread out at the roots, several scars on his snout, a long horn, and his clothes were covered in dried patches of blood.

The fl- - the unicorn, lying on his back, instinctively kicked his front legs, and a loud crack was heard. Shards of glass fell on him, only luckily not causing any injury in so doing.

It was a mirror. He was lying under a mirror.

“Idiot. Could have figured out that the horn was pushing up against something”

As Fixer allowed himself to relax, he tried to push the mirror off in order to stand up, but it would not lift. Not even with what little magic he could muster through the migraine would it move, and so he had to just slide from under it, grimacing as one of the shards found its way into the vest, piercing his hide ever so slightly. It troubled him how after the pain, a calm washed over the battered body, but not enough to warrant much of a thought.

“Double idiot. Could have at least recognized yourself.”

The unwelcome damp air of the new room fully embraced him in its chilly breeze. It was not as lit as the… place that he had last remembered himself in. There was little in the way of explaining how he ended up here... and it was very far from his best interests to think about that.

As something audibly shuffled and produced sounds that one could most closely recognize as moaning on the upper level, he was not really given a choice.

dear you for me?

Oh no, - Fixer hastily searched the room for any way up - You have to be sh-

But there it was - a rather long set of steps, barely exposed to the light from a small firefly lamp that hung in the corner of the room, that ended with a solid wooden door.

“Just do something.”

The object that would best suffice as a barrier seemed to be the table that the lamp was placed over - with all of his strength Fixer pulled at it and threw it to the stairs, encased in a grey aura. Then, having galloped to the bottom of the steps, he pushed it again, coming just short of ramming it into the door and then carefully placing it down so as not to make too much noise. He was not even sure that sound mattered for what he heard out there, but the pulsing and ringing in his head drew him to act.

The burst of activity did not go unnoticed by his body, and immediately after that he nearly fell over, forced to lean on the damp wall to regain any sort of composure.

“Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Do not think. Nothing is wrong.”

how nice hor awful ribble hmmm

Panting, the unicorn carefully slid down the wall into a sitting position and lifted his head. However hard he tried, he could not rid himself of the sound of the ragged, broken, dispersed screams and the sheer concept of what he had seen before losing himself. To his horror, the moan-like sounds from upstairs had the same distorted quality to them.

To his further horror, there was a shape in the darkness. A slim, static equine shade.

Fixer’s eyes widened, he backed up, his throat swelling up, but then there was nowhere left to back up to. He really was an idiot. A table would not have stopped something like… like what he had seen. Nothing would have stopped it. It would not have just passed by. It had come for him. It was-

Oh, fuck me.

It was a ponnequin. There were about six of them stored in the room, in fact. He probably just never had the time to notice the shapes in the panic of it all. Maybe the light just never got to them.

“Real smooth, Detective. What next, getting scared of rags with eyeholes?”

It seemed a little strange to him that even though he had little difficulty seeing that the furniture in the cellar - and it clearly was a cellar - was rather well looked after, that the last time it was cleaned could not have been earlier than yesterday and that there was a rather long corridor right outside the door - that was clear just by the echoes - he never did notice a whole half a dozen of ponnequins in all but plain sight. But then, it had become painfully obvious that his health was far from its peak. For all intents and purposes, he was battling just for the control over his body. A blunder like that could be excused.

Fixer just stared at the creepy figures in the shade as his lungs spasmed. The plastic ponies just stood there. They could not harm him. At least that was good news. He glanced down and rolled his eyes at the sight of the piece of glass still stuck in his vest, piercing the pocket area. If only everything in his body hurt just as much as that little sting. It made him feel a little bit more excited than a wound like that should, but it was nothing major.

“Got to get it out and clean the wound. Known hardasses who died from less.”

As the shard flew out, the shrill clank resonating in the back of his head, the unicorn suddenly realized that there was an unusual shuffle in the movement. Paper.

He could swear that the distorted moaning was not audible anymore. The screaming and the tumbling in his head gave way, allowing more freedom of thought. He inhaled and exhaled, and got himself to think.

“Hold on. The vest was full-strip.”

With a surprised look on his tensed up face, Fixer lifted up a notebook from his vest. It was not there before. His eyes squinting, he instinctively checked it for any rig or barrier - that was unnecessary, as him having carried it in his pocket would have activated it long ago - and actually found one. A simple lightning shock, something that would leave you convulsing for a couple of seconds. If you were proficient with magic, that is. If you were not, you would be fried on the spot.

It was his own. He could trace the magic. That was why it did not work on him.

The next thing he noticed was the note on the cover of the notebook. It said “Fixer”. There where it was not covered by dried blood. The X fittingly had a dot in the middle, left by the shard.

“Also works.”

Most of the pages were glued together and could not be pulled apart without tearing them up. He could see glimpses of their contents - scribbles, sketches, notes. It clearly used to be in regular and extensive use, only right now most of it was dark red with the same blood that covered his clothes. Thankfully, there finally was a page that he could read well. Disregarding the lack of light in the corner that he snugged himself in, Fixer read:

“Day ? - ask nurse

It skips too often. Look out for them my ass, everything is much more complicated, always is. Keep phasing out. Hard to stay awake. Still capable, but just barely. Even harder to keep the book from the nurses.
DIAMOND ROUGH
BROKEN KEY
IN REFLECTION
THERE IS NO FEAR
UNTIL NEXT
FIXED THEng pain. Have to find out what the pills are made of. They taste different in here. Like there’s sugar in them.”

For a short while, he just stared. That was not supposed to be there. Those huge, hastily scribbled words. He frowned, blinked, shook his head, cursed himself for so doing, and looked again, now with a new and improved headache. And yet, what he saw before himself was wrong.

He still could not remember much from his life, true. Having seen his face, found out his name and at least some of his story was not enough to bring it back. Memories still stung when they rolled back, though barely as much as they did at first. But this was one of them, and that page did not have huge words written obscuring the entry.

Fixer really wanted to think that the message plastered over the page did not make sense. And yet, something in the back end of his consciousness itched at the sight of the words. Somehow, it made sense. He just did not know what it was yet.

The rest of the notebook yielded little else but more bloodied pages, glued together by the same bodily liquid. It seemed extremely unlikely that but one would be spared, but it was not like anyone asked him how things were to work. In the current situation, this was but one more to throw to the heap of things that made no logical sense and made him want to crawl into a corner and wait for everything to get better. Only he would not do that. It would not get better by itself. And at the rate things were going, the corner he would crawl into could well end up devouring his soul.

I fix things, - the unicorn spoke out loud once again, sliding the memo book back to the pocket. He kept catching himself do that more and more often. Not like there was anyone to hear him.

Seem awful how? ohhh the we are plea are not good

Or maybe there was.

So naíve to think that it had passed. That it was, perhaps, never even there.

With a startled cough, he jumped up and backed away from the door, his sight nearly going black from the rapid movement. The horrifying voice could be heard from just behind the door.

“Get out of here. Get out, fast.”

Desperate, he scanned the room. It was a plain old cellar. Cellars did not normally have several exits. The one that he saw was blocked by a table and had something he prefered to think could not exist on the other side. That something also probably could walk through solid objects if it wanted to. If it could walk. If it could want.

ever afraid fix no oh no no how? broken

Making step after step with great effort, he moved to the more lit side of the room, as if hoping that fortune would smile upon him and something could be visible from there. His eyes still lurked left to right in search of… anything.

So this so ter poor so terribly sorry

The impossible, infernal shuffling suddenly intensified as Fixer passed the halfway mark to the light. He heard the sound of what he could only assume was reality being bent.

honest She means nest lee well

And suddenly, as he looked by his hooves, he saw it. The shard that he pulled out of himself. It radiated a broken light, it showed images that were simply not what should have been getting reflected. In it, pictures jumbled and swapped places, his blood almost a transistor. Distorted and wrong, they still were clear to the eye, and washed a calm wave over his senses. He stared at it, and it stared back.

“Broken key.”

A clear, blue sky. A sparkling, deep blue gem. A dark blue eye. A dress, woven of blue fabric.

This was his grasping straw. It was already clear that the other part of the room held nothing - just a solid wall, perfectly illuminated in the lamplight. There was no hidden passage there, he saw that. There would have been at least a tiny little crack visible. There was not even one. But this… This was special.

plea right all right alright darling?

“Diamond rough.”

At last, an idea. The unicorn hurried to the statues. The creepy, featureless ponnequins seemed almost homely in comparison to what he did not want to think was shifting into existence behind him.

“No fear.”

There were six of them. Six. The number resonated in his memory. Not a coincidence. They were not all exactly the same, either - each of them had something on. Clothes and accessories, all of different bright colors - green, purple, orange, the lot. Finally, he found one which looked like it fit.

NO not you so not afraid well DON’T LOOK

Diamond rough.

It had the former - it was laden with the freaking things. Applying the “rough” part was more challenging, but the oncoming panic hastened his actions and told him to break them to pieces. He could spend an hour breaking each of them - especially in his condition - and especially with his heart threatening to stop any second if he allowed himself to think of whatever was behind him. As he tried to spasm out a saving thought, he heard a new strange sound. His teeth were gritting so loudly that they almost startled him.

ohhh dar oh no means ling DEAR?

“Fixed them.”

NO darling however fix?

“Fixed them?”

Finally, he made a stab in the dark. Levitating the foul, wrong, calming shard, he took it not to any of the gems on the dress, but to those on the flank - there was a quad of rhombus-like diamonds stitched on it, probably the mark of whoever was to wear it.

The unicorn felt everything shift and stutter as he lost control of his legs, while his ears were bombarded with a cacophony of voices, music and noise. Breathing heavily, his eyes open wide, he felt his body start to turn around. Step into step, he walked closer to the stairs, where but a second ago an Error stood, and then up. There was no table blocking the path. The door was open. A light, almost burnt-orange to his eyes, shone in the big corridor outside. His legs made steps all by themselves, his mind was paralyzed. As his last hoof made impact with the rug on the floor, he heard a sound akin to glass breaking back there in the cellar. And then the door slammed shut behind him.

Fixer fell on the floor, breathing heavily, blood rushing through his head.

“Fixed them.”

- Your leg is bleeding.

- Oh, I am so terribly sorry. There is glass everywhere now…

He leaned on the wall, still having some difficulty standing up.

- I said, your leg is bleeding.

- Ah, don’t worry, dear. It’s quite alright. You get used to cuts from a young age if you sew, I’m afraid.

- You can get infected. And that can get nasty.

- Oh, please, it is not like I will overlook such a simple safety precaution. I just believe that it is a higher priority for me to serve my guest his tea before I can attend to my personal selfish needs.

She smiled. He groaned. Mostly from the headache, but also from how saccharine everything felt.

- I've known hard- rather tough ponies buy it from less. Trust me, it’s not a pretty sight. Maybe you’ll want to be sure.

He barely had time to recognize the mistake he had made - the mare’s hoof was already on his shoulder. Like he needed even more balance issues.

- Oh… dear. As I have said, I am so terribly sorry. I did not think it would-

- You were apologizing for your shi- menace of a sister that time.

- But you get what I mean, don’t you?

His vision went blurry for a moment.

- I do. Just don’t worry yourself over this. You have bigger problems, like this mirror, which probably needs to be taken away.

- Ah, that is absolutely fine. We’ll... I’ll take it to the cellar.

- Do you plan on fixing it? In this condition?

- Ohhh, however will we fix it, must you wonder? Well, let me assure you, I am quite the magician when it comes to fixing things.

Blurry again. This time the nausea increased to intolerable levels. He groaned and breathed heavily, his head growing too heavy to keep it straight.

- Dear? Are you alright?

He could not make himself stand even as he leaned against a wall.

- Oh, you do not look good.

- I’m…

He collapsed, though not on the floor, but on the white unicorn’s back. Convenient. Barely soothing, though.

- Not okay. Hold on, darling, I’ll get help in a moment.

It was cold.

---

To his big surprise, he was not only alive, but also running when consciousness had decided that it wanted to visit him once again. Unconsciously, he galloped, his lungs wrung out like a desiccated rag, down the long corridor. Obviously, as soon as he realized himself, he fell flat on his face.

“That… is a new one.”

For a short while, he could not move at all - better than before, when his mind plainly refused to make the body do what it was told, this time he was just exhausted. He did not know if he ran after something or from something, or why he ran at all, but knowing the situation, the latter option was the more likely one.

At the very least, the rug that covered the corridor floor was rather soft. A welcome change after so many hard, cold floors. His nose greatly appreciated that. It was still cold, though. There was a chill wind circling through the passageway. A window was open somewhere.

“Oh, that’s not good.”

Through effort, he forced himself to stand up. Even in his ragged condition, he remembered what happened the last time a window was open. He was not taking chances, and therefore limped ahead, heading as far away from the direction from which the wind was blowing.

“I guess it explains why I was running. And hell if it explains how I was running when I was out. Just calm down and breathe. Remember, nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.”

As he looked ahead of himself, he somehow only saw the corridor. Lamps were put up here and there, beaconing in the distance, but that was just about all there was. It was unnaturally long.

“This is insanity. Good, old, full-fledged insanity. There is no way, on any plane of existence, that this shit could just happen. I refuse to believe that. Not sure if that means I’m sane, or that this is cuckoo.”

The only thing he could do was walk. The wind blew from the back, hurrying him deeper into the endless hallway. Limping forward still, he dragged the diary from his pocket, and revisited the one spread that he could read. There was little meaning to it, until…

“Until next.”

What if it did not stand for “Until next time”? What if it actually meant something? There was nothing else to point to.

Until next…

He looked around himself. Nothing but the same, with the lanterns spread out, each as far from the other as the other was from one more.

Until… - Fixer downed his head in thought. And had an idea.

The rug. There was an ornament on the rug, a pattern. A sophisticated amalgamation of squiggly lines in the middle that not even an expert could figure out, but the borders were stitched as if to look like lines of the very same diamonds that were on the ponnequin’s flank.

Until next... - he repeated with an understanding, coughing out what looked like slightly bloodied saliva immediately after, - This can’t work.

Nevertheless, he went to the nearest lamp, made note of the diamond right behind it, and then looked at the other one. Carefully stepping ahead, he counted them.

“One.”

The wind got stronger.

“Two.”

The floor shook under his hooves. That probably meant he was doing something right. Or that something was going wrong.

“Three.”

A loud bang shot through the hall, starting some distance in front of him. He was not scared anymore, he was determined.

“Four.”

The diamonds that he counted tore up as if a knife went into the rug.

“Five.”

The light was not orange anymore.

“Six.”

His body got launched forward, into the light that was painful to look at. He landed in… a kitchen.

Yes, he knew that place. It was where the corridor lead to in that white mare’s place.

It clicked now. He knew what it was. He did not want to think about it before, but now he had to look the truth in the face, if there was a truth or a face in this insanity.

Fixer looked up, rolling to his side in order not to lift his aching head up. In front of him stood the broken, dispersed Error. It was near impossible to force his eyes to stay locked onto it.

It was… but, in other moments, it was not. It had a shape much like his, but something always changed size, like a piece of a puzzle somebody feverishly tried to put together. It had no texture, and no real substance - it was like a solid image, pieces of which changed every half a second. As if it kept trying to assemble itself together, but could not. Somewhere in the back, in the shadows, he could swear there were equine shapes, static and staring right at him.

It stepped towards him, almost mocking the motion of a pony’s step - the legs of the Error would disappear and reappear again in slightly different positions with different images making up their texture. Nonetheless, it slid towards him steadily. It passed through solid objects like if it was never there. In some sense, that was the case.

A clear, blue sky. A sparkling, deep blue gem. A dark blue eye. A dress, woven of blue fabric. Faces that stung his memory. Places which did the same. It was all broken, spread everywhere.

The unicorn looked up at it. His mind reeled from the wrongness of its sheer existence. There was a reason why he called them Errors. Forcing himself to look right at the non-creature, he knew he had to say something. He almost had the words, he almost knew what to say to it - what to call her, but...

“nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong”

His eyes slid from the horrifying, wrong, pitiful concoction to something on the right. It was very hard to keep everything in control. Eyes, thoughts, words. He was falling apart as is. The world seemed to be eager to join him.

He could only blame himself as a sliver of a thought of freedom slipped through his feverish mind as he saw the open window, behind which there was a great grey nothing.

He could only blame himself as the Error shuddered and awkwardly jumped into existence way away from where he was. The window had begun to form a mind-melting mixture of colors, from which he heard a voice. It was not a new voice.

Who DO in YOU? away STEP he fect fed

Fixer backed away as fast as his body allowed him to. It was a futile attempt, but what else could he do? He had spent enough time paralyzed in fear already that day.

no no did NOTHING you spying to WHY?

Soon enough, he ran out of room. In front of him, there was everything that was ever wrong about existence in itself. One half stood still, deep blue and white, frighteningly static for something so chaotic and impossible. The other, so painfully colorful with streaks of sky blue erratically flashing over it, flew at him - flew, not walked - at the speed that was ludicrously fast and surprisingly slow at the same time. It was like its momentum was being lost every second. Much like his mind.

A cloud. A city of clouds. A bright, blue sky. A uniform. A strange line in the sky. A stadium. A huge crowd. The same faces. The same places.

He bumped his head against the kitchen counter. His eyes just closed, they had seen far too much that day. He could only hear now - hear the ragged noises and voices coming at him, a mirror breaking and something rolling.

“Strange. Clear sounds. That’s it.”

As Fixer wholly accepted his death, or, perhaps, insanity - or, possibly, both, - an apple hit him on the head.

And then it was night.

Over Dead Bodies

Author's Note

I suppose this is where I give out the imporant warning, which also counts as a small spoiler for this chapter, so you'll have to decide what you value more - story integrity or your possibly weak psyche. From this chapter on, the "Gore" tag is no longer hanging as dead weight. Do remember, though, that it continues not to stand for "Torture Porn". ydrkwyslbis wgw ffimm

Google Docs version continues to be superior and can be found here.

Over Dead Bodies

Hoot.

Fixer spat out small bits of grass, mixed together with drops of blood. Presumably his own.

Hoot, - a branch cracked.

“Where… and how…”

Hoot.

That was an owl. At least, the hoots were definitely those of an owl. Pure, clean hoots. There was no distortion on them. It sounded natural.

What?..

It was chilly. The wind blew from somewhere above and behind - the direction he came in rolling. A small hill, most likely.

That’s... - he stopped to wince as his migraine took over for a few seconds, turning his already blurry vision into a complete mishmash - not right.

There was not supposed to be any wind. There was not supposed to be any owl. He was supposed to be dead, or somehow else erased from existence, or whatever these… things were after, for crying out loud. The chilly, windy outside and the grassy hill did not add up. It protested against insanity with improbability of its own existence.

If there even was such a thing as an improbability anymore.

The owl kept on hooting and the wind kept on blowing. The wind did not sound or feel twisted or intent on ripping Fixer apart, either, much like the owl. The grass that got into his mouth also seemed so, coupled with soil.

“Am I… free?”

He wished the indistinguishable dark mess around him would stop spinning, so that he could finally see where he was. From what he could feel, it could not have been inside. There were blatantly visible shapes of trees - an entire forest of them, - torchbugs flying around, all the things that you do not put inside. All the things that did not go inside. The wind also could not have come from a window, it would have to be absolutely massive.

In the madness he found himself when he woke up, there was never any outside. What little method he found to it, struggling to survive, let alone make sense of a single thing, indicated that the place he was in consisted of jumbled, broken interiors, tied together by some insane plot. It was surreal, hostile and mocked him with its haunting existence. The mere thought of what catastrophe could have caused any of it to happen threatened to shatter Fixer’s mind into pieces. In that insanity, the outside was only there to threaten and end him. A grey, blank mass of nothingness that spawned something impossible. An Error. No owls. No trees. No chilly hillside winds.

In short, him being on damp ground, surrounded by murmuring trees and whatever nocturnal life belonged to a forest, had to mean that he was not there anymore.

What? - he shouted dizzily to the wind, grimacing as the pressure in his head destabilized, causing another wave of nausea, - Finally let me out?

There was a definite echo. He could not tell before, as then every sound made echoes, including sounds that his imagination conjured up out of fright. This was a good, decent echo. An echo that belonged to a spooky old forest. Not a sign of looming madness.

Fixer never thought he would be so happy to be in a spooky old forest in the middle of the night.

Is this over? Am I done?

The unicorn grunted, shakily standing up and trying to keep his balance up.

AM I DONE? - he yelled out, panting and coughing.

There was no response. What sounds scuttled in the dark did not count - they were clear, not distorted, not hopelessly wrong, and as such could not belong to those he was calling out to in the night. They could not have been part of what he called out to.

Standing in place, he looked around, intensely staring at each bit of scenery. It was dark, crooked and rather disturbing. Naturally dark, crooked and disturbing. The trees went up and into the blank dark sky, connecting with each other by means of thick lianas, and between them shadows shuffled and ghostly lights circled around. It was great.

Breathing in the air, he stood there.

“Something is wrong.”

He did not want to think anymore.

“Something is wrong.”

A misplaced step nearly sent him tumbling down, but he recaptured his balance and kicked the inconvenient book out of the way.

“Something is wrong.

He had begun to laugh. Raspily, with his head pulsing at each breath, but still he laughed, mocking the horrors that wanted him. They were not there to get him anymore.

“Something is wrong.”

Hoot.

Ecstatic and more than a little bit delirious, he enveloped a small rock next to his hoof in an aura and threw it high up into the night sky, celebrating survival. He put all his strength into it, however little there was.

“Something. Is. Wrong.”

THUNK.

Coughing from his laughing fit, he still heard it. The rock sounded off very fast.

“No.”

THUNK-thunk.

And then it did so again, landing right next to him.

His eyes went blank as he had begun to realize.

No.

Hoot.

Fixer looked up, afraid of what he would see. And that was exactly what he saw.

NO.

There was a tear in the night sky. He could almost see the piece of cloth hanging down, the fabric disturbed by the sharp rock. And behind that fabric, was wood.

The night sky above him was a roof.

Hoot hh hhh.

I did not just hear that, - the unicorn coughed out, turning around warily, - This can’t be real.

oot hhOOOT!

The owl was just as distorted. Maybe he just did not want to hear it before, maybe his mind was starting to cave in, or maybe that demented realm had rules more complicated than what he presumed to think he knew.

That theory was given some credit.

How can this be?..

Behind him was a broken, blinking night sky. Like a tapestry, it hung behind him, twitching and convulsing each time the “owl” hooted. It was a sick error of a night. A sick Error. It was wrong.

Why... - he glared at it, his cockroach thoughts squashed by the thumping hooves of insanity.

He could not drive his eyes away from it. It showed so much in its fractured parts and pieces, but, at the same time, so little of it made sense. He felt his mind being taken away once again.

“Find yourself.”

The thing in front of him rippled and agonized. It was getting smaller second by second.

“Only you can do this.”

Fixer’s knees met the ground, the rest of him following suit, his beaten body giving out a moan of pain.

“Noone else can do it right.”

The wind intensified greatly, pushing him away from the irreal tapestry and his own consciousness all the same.

“Fixed them?.”

“Day 3

They bought it. Never thought myself a good actor, but it turns out that with a bit of a push, there’s very little to impossibility. The hardest parts are over. I have an excuse, a temporary residence and a reason for them to consider me something but a two-bit shamus fuck from hell-knows-where whom they should send off to the authorities. That’s better than I’ve ever had it. Granted, there are problems.

Problem one - I’m pretty sure that if the fever does not let off, it’s mugs up for me. Ever since the… encounter in Everfree the forest, it’s been getting worse. I can barely walk in a straight line without a headache now. Expectedly, it makes the task rather difficult. Still, I can’t fault that place for what happened… much. It was there that I got the idea, after all. Either way, I can’t let that deter me. Best case scenario’s that the locals look through the diagnosis again, find some sort of flu and just feed me pills and potions and what have you until it goes away. Doesn't sound too far-fetched. It’s not like I ever cared much about my liver.

Problem two - that stupid blue bitchDashSTUPID BLUE BITCH is far too suspicious. It must be some sort of a cruel joke. Of all of them, she has got to be the dullest tool in the shed… and yet, she is the only one to think that maybe a stranger with their photos in his things is a cause for alarm. Of course, she suspects that I’m a spy for the changelings, or that I want to steal that annoying pink earth-bitch’s recipes or some inane crap like that - I really don’t feel like listening to her when she’s around anymore - but if she finds anything at all, there might be problems. Not that I can’t take her.

Also, if you’re reading this, congratulations - you have successfully nagged Sparkle into searching the room with the right spell. Better fucking yet, you predicted how exactly the book is rigged to go off if anyone but me opens it. If not, then I don’t envy you, and I’m the one who pukes when he turns his head the wrong way. I’m also probably dead, because hell if I’m going to let you into my room? Got that? Stupid, useless bimbos. Make me sick just thinking about you. Even sicker if I write. Fuck this. I’m talking to myself in my own diary. Go me.

Problem three… I don’t want to write about it. Fuck it, I don’t want to think about it. Only I can’t stop coming back to it. I can’t control it. What I saw there, it couldn’t have been there. It’s starting to really mess with me. I don’t like where this is going. Yes, it gave me inspiration, but in return… A sickness I can live through, but this? This is worse. I don’t know how, but this is worse. A hurricane of insanity. It was meant to be gone. It was all fine. I know it was, I got the things and set off, no second-guessing and no secret agenda. It’s like… It’s like something is off with what I remember. Now, when I think back to it, I don’t think I remember that many things, and what I do remember… It is wrong.

I think the timberwolves and the forest might not be my biggest problems on the way out.”

The moon stared right at him. Not the moon, no, that was more of a mockery of it. It was painted on the canvas above. He saw the smudged watercolor now, there where there used to be blackness. Above him was a fake night sky with a fake full moon. He was so blind not to notice it before. It did not even have the Mare in the Moon.

“The flicker.”

It did, however, stare at him. There was a huge eye painted over it.

“The greyish light. This is wrong. This is all so wrong.”

That eye moved as he looked at it.

This was most definitely not an operable level of existence. It was foolish to pretend that it was, foolish from the very start, when he awoke in pain, falling from his bed onto the library floor, taken by fever, by insanity. A teasing mockery of a reality - one that he could not remember. Now, weakened physically, weakened mentally, he realized that if he were to run from it any longer that would only mean a more exhausted descent into eldritch grayness. Or, worse yet, eldritch colorfulness. The horrid mix of colors that squirmed at the edge of his thoughts, at the edge of this sick world.

He had to face it.

It was.

“You made it. You are in control. You can not stop now. Find it.”

With a throbbing pain in his chest, Fixer made himself get up and stared back into the observing moon. His head ached too much for his gaze to move.

“You had the power, you have it still. You only have to find it.”

All so real… - a droplet of blood landed on the dimly lit ground in a cough, - It can’t just be.

And yet it was.

It… - he muttered, going so far as to hit himself on the head several times - ...is. And I am fine. I can fix this. It’s all going to be fine. Nothing is wrong.

As he forced his mind to come to terms with that, something clunked within him. It latched open like a door and distanced him from the pulsing pain, finally allowing vision, breath and movement. A terrible thought to process - the definite existence of undeniable impossibility - but it was the right one. He had to survive, and in order to survive one needs to move on. He would fix it all. That was only logical. That was what he was for. He knew it, he felt right realizing that it defined his existence. He was back to the world gone wrong.

“Nothing is wrong.”

A moment of visual inspection showed that he was in the same home-grown forest as before.

Something caused this, - he muttered, looking at the ink-captured stare on the “moon”, - I can’t be so elaborately insane.

“Perhaps insanity, plain and simple, but nonetheless one you know how to operate. You only have to remember.”

Brushing off bits of lifeless grass of him and breathing in the dead air, he saw what had to be his next destination - a source of light close to the treeline. It was not there before.

“The changes are caused by the obscure. It is a fickle thing. But you will find out. You do that.”

The light near him was sufficient enough to see the shapes of the surroundings, which was also a push to move to the light - behind him, where the “sky” used to be, now stood a solid wall, like one of a barn. It appeared sturdy and bulky, but that did not stop Fixer from giving it a few knocks. Sure enough, there was no passing it - the wall covered a thick layer of stone, and the echoes indicated that the wall stretched on for a long distance, almost a mile, if not more. The idea of checking it all went through his head, but was discarded immediately. The dark, dangerous and unknown depths of the broken realm he was in were much less preferred than the somewhat illuminated ones. At the end of the day, there was only one Fixer to spare, both physically and mentally. He would do best to make his way towards the light.

“I hope so.”

A small relief came as the unicorn made his way - it was no longer hard labor to put one leg in front of the other. Perhaps his realization of the situation really did lighten the weight on his shoulders, or perhaps the mysterious sickness just decided to take things slow for a while. Either way, barely panting at all, he looked at what cast the light down the hillside.

Strange, - he made a vocal understatement.

In front of him was an office. A desk, littered with torn, smudged, blank papers, a seat, an ashtray full of old cigarette stubs. Instinctively, before even looking at any of those in detail, he sniffed and concluded that it had to have been weeks since there was any activity in the office. Then he allowed himself to point out that all of it stood on a grassy patch of land, and the table lamp that clearly used to be wielded in place - as evidenced by a dustless shape on the wood - was peeking out of a narrow hole in a nearby tree. Better yet, it was fully operational. He knew, if only by recollection of the design, that it was not a firefly lamp, which meant that it had no business shining after having been dismantled. It did. It was the light source that lead him there.

Fixer tilted his head and walked around the desk, examining the scene. For all intents and purposes, the place looked normal - as normal as an office in the middle of an insanity-ridden forest in the middle of an insanity-ridden realm could be. No scratches, no blood, nothing felt off about it. It was… homely.

---

- It is in your eyes, Detective. You are drawn to it.

- The one thing I’m drawn to right now is the bed.

- You clearly understand that I am merely vocalizing what has for so long been going through your head. We give you a job, you do the job, and everything is fine, as it always was.

- Also the booze. Yeah, I’d be grateful if you passed me the booze.

- I am only telling you what you know you want to hear.

---

The unicorn barely noticed how pictures flashed before his eyes. They were not like the other ones, not like the other memories that came back before - they did not sting. They were almost soothing. Not any more detailed or understandable, but something felt right about them. Or rather, nothing felt wrong.

“This place has something to do with me. It feels… right.”

That thought made him hold his breath for a second. He then threw the desk drawers open.

“Getting closer… somehow…”

More blank papers, scrolls, quills and pens. Empty bottles of what had to have been alcohol. One by one, he checked each, getting giddier and more light-headed by the second.

It’s here, - Fixer whispered, the bland aura throwing the last section open.

It was there. The Shard.

“The flicker…”

---

- What are you doing? Mr. Fixer, are you al-

---

He cradled it in his telekinetic grip. The same shard from before. The one he cut himself on in the cellar. The one he stabbed the figure with. Sharp and covered in blood, it was so calming nonetheless. It screamed memories into his head, but the pain from these screams did not seem to cause Fixer pain, no, it brought clarity. Not understanding, not yet, but clarity.

Though it never belonged there, it felt even better than the homelike office. It was almost as if it gave him direction. What for he could not yet comprehend, but it was most definitely the right way. Though he could hear the dread-instilling distortion and torn words echo in his head, he did not feel the same fear and repulsion. It was not normal, but it most assuredly was not wrong. It was important. It was something to grasp onto, something to link things together. It captivated him.

---

All dressed up, all so… posh. So important. So full of themselves. So incandescently cock-sure.

He saw them now, and they were none of that. He saw them now, the way they were to be. He saw them , the pillars, the sacred cornerstones that were hidden oh so well. It showed him. He had a goal, the one simple thing left to do was to make himself a means towards achieving it.

That was the one thing he was good at. He would no longer be so blank. He would no longer be in the background. He would finally fix the world gone wrong.

He rolled over and released another tide of black from his mouth. It was so cold.

---

An uncomfortableness caused Fixer to gasp - he realized that for the past minute he had not taken one breath. Coughing and panting, he closed his eyes for but a moment.

Once he brought his attention back to the majestic flickering shard, it was no longer there.

“Find it.”

He felt his face scrunch up into a spasmatic grimace. His source of peace taken away, he was vulnerable again, even while surrounded by familiar shapes. He could not let it pass. It was the key.

Determined, he rose up. His path would lead into the skitters and shambles of the forest, through unnatural darkness and whatever unimaginable things it would concoct, but he knew that at the end, he would find it. It would lead him there where he need it. He could not explain how, but he knew.

“They think they can get away. They think they can stop me.”

The dull air passing in and out of his nostrils, he gathered himself. A closer inspection of what was on the table bore no more fruit than before - the papers were all completely meaningless. He could not even read the text on them. That was fine by him, as they were unnecessary, he knew that. It was no big loss when the light behind him flickered and then no longer shone on the desk, a chill wind blowing off some of the sheets.

Fixer turned around to see what happened, the boost in confidence allowing him to do so without so much as a noticeable headache. The desk lamp, stationed in a tree, had fallen apart - the smooth conic part broke off and hit the ground. That did not, however, stop it from sending out a ray of light - it went upwards, lighting up a patch of the night sky on the ceiling far above. There was not even a hint of a power source within - the light simply came out of it, if only to mock laws of reason. Curious, he lifted it up. The ray emitted from the bulb reached relatively far, though not particularly wide, and the loss of the bulky body made it easy to manipulate through telekinesis.

Well, this will come in handy, - Fixer concluded, deciding not to think too much of it, if only to spare himself the dark descent.

Instead, he took to a more productive activity - testing a theory that he cooked up, having come to terms with the insane rule-alikes of the world gone wrong. The notebook in his pocket levitated out and under the light, its pages begun to flip. What little remained of the detective inside of him lit up, if only faintly so.

“Diamond in the rough.”

And there it was - a new entry. One bearing a message yet again, covering up a good part of the text.

“Day3?

They bought it. Never thought found YOU

once shatteredonsider something but a two-bit shamus fuck from hell-knows-where who they should send off to the authorities. That’s better than I’ve ever had it. Granted, there are problems.

Problem one - I’m pretty sure that if the fever does not let off, it’s mugs up for me. Ever since the… encounter in broken been getting worse. I can barely walk in a straight line without a headache now. Expectedly, it makes my task rather difficuvictims show signsyour idea

piece togethern’t sound too far-fetched. It’s not like I ever cared much about my liver.

Problem two - that can fixH) is far too suspicious. It must be some sort of a cruel joke. Of all of them, she has got to be the dullest tool in the shed… and yet, she is the only one to think that maybe a stranger with their photos in his things is a cause for alarm. can shapeNot that I can’t take her.

FRAME FixER

WILL SHAPE

MAKE SPACE

DO NOT ESCAPE

THEY LURE

OR it is wrong.

I think the timberwolves and the forest might not be my biggest problems on the way out.”

After that, only more pages glued together by blood. This one, however, was enough.

The words that he could almost remember himself writing correlated with the fragmented pictures that would flash before his eyes. They stung, although now the pain was much less significant. However bad it was, it was overridden by the hope stirred by the entry. Something strange, something wrong was going on with him before it all happened. The sickness was there to begin with. And so, somehow, it came to be from what was, from what he could now remember in tiny bits and small pieces. Perhaps, a way out was not out of the realm of possibility. He could fix this. There had to be a way out if there was a way in. That was how things worked. It brought some reason to the situation.

So did the words written over most of the entry. The same confusing hints as before, they were reassuring nonetheless… for the most part. Somehow, by thought or by association, he felt drawn. The direction was given, the fleeting pictures flashing somewhere in the depths of his subconscious. The forest, the fake assessment of trees, bunched under a painted, staring sky. It was only there that his path took him now, where the moon could no longer stretch its gaze upon him.

The unicorn took a look into the dreary blackness of tall trees that pushed up against the ceiling, growing from the wooden floor. They seemed real enough. For the purposes of this new reality, they very much were.

He took a deep breath, making one last look behind, at what was once close to him, but now was lost to an insane, intricate world and plain amnesia. Now, he was to proceed into darkness.

“They think they can hide it from me?”

---

It was by choice that he stepped off the carriage a good couple of miles away from his destination. They said it was suicide to go through the forest alone, at night, with no means to defend oneself. He knew their kind well enough. Champions of absolute, unobtrusive bullshit. Eager to believe any folk tale at once, and to exaggerate it tenfold given the opportunity. So blinded by their superstitious fear that they would not notice his horn. It was weapon enough for him, in any circumstance.

The map showed him a rather clear shortcut to the village. It was just going to be several hours through the somewhat wildlife-infested and plant-filled thickets, and then he would have a clean, nice way of entering from where surely no one right in their head ever would.

All part of the plan.

Nothing was wrong.

---

The boost in confidence was being used intensely and vigorously. Without it, Fixer feared he would have just started stumbling off the path and into the luring depths of both the demented forest and his own mind.

Dead by definition, the artificial forest seemed full of what one would be forced to classify as life. In the distance, he kept catching glimpses of plump torchbugs, but should he ever have come close, they would disappear into thin air. A better look showed that there were no bugs to the torches - floating lights, nothing more. At times, a bird or a beast would yelp out in discordant rage, and never could Fixer identify if it was, in fact, somewhere in the trees, or just in his head. The massive, twisting, sprawling trunks deceived his senses, showing up as shapes in the distance, limbs reaching for him outside the lamplight, smelling of fresh soil and knocking off deceitful echoes. He could only trust what was directly in front of him, caught in the thankfully undying ray of dim light. He made step after step after careful step, led by intuition.

Unfortunately, his steps being careful had to mean that the cracking of the twigs and branches that kept springing into earshot was not his doing.

“Nothing is wrong. Keep moving. Just a while closer.”

The floor being made up of branch-less, soil-less wood was also part of the reason. His hooves thudded on it, the other sounds ruffled and cracked, as if in a real forest. Yet another example of his willingness to mask reality for baseless wishes. Had he been enlightened earlier, he would have noticed it as soon as he arrived. There would have been no anxiety. There was never any anxiety with the Shard.

The Shard was gone. At least for the time being. The cracks, however, kept getting closer.

Needless to say, Fixer felt like he was being watched.

“This is freaking stupid. Those things, they had no body. Fuck if I know what they had. They wouldn't step on twigs. They don’t need to. Whatever is making those sounds has a body. ”

As he passed what looked like an old moldy post, there was another series of ruffles and shambles. But this time, it was worse.

He could hear someone breathing.

That was not him. His was the wheeze that layered over the grunting breath that kept coming from the thickness ahead.

Tensing up, the unicorn circled in place. For a while, he figured that perhaps he could catch the thing that kept making noises in the light - it was likely a quadruped of size close to his, possibly wounded, and…

Then he realized that whatever it was, it would be far, far from friendly. Also that he would be much happier without seeing it.

With that, he almost set off to swiftly get as far away as possible, but then… The post that he stopped at got caught in the ray again. There was a sign on it. Barely visible, murky and worn. Something, a short writing, once cleaved into the solid wood, a long tape wrapped over the sign. It had words on it.

As he read them, his ears flipped back. Eyes narrowing, he read:

“CRIME SCENE. DO NOT CROSS. POLICE AUTHORITY.”

The back of his head felt a familiar sting of a revving drill. Memories sprung up again, meaningless to him in their jumbled form, but painful nonetheless.

He did, however, catch something in the chaos of thoughts. That something scared him even more, though why he could not tell.

“Victims show signs.”

The sounds were definitely getting closer now. Springing back into movement, he tried to tear the tape off the post, but to no avail - it stuck to it. It made noise, too. He was wasting time.

Looking back, Fixer could clearly see it. Some distance away from him, between the trees, a very solid-looking shape. It breathed. It moved. It looked alive.

Then it got caught in the light.

Oh, fuck me.

He lost control over himself. He had been through insanity, he was inside insanity, he saw entities that could not be understood by any mind, he slipped in and out of consciousness. He lived through that all, with his psyche, however dark it may have been to begin with, intact. He had it in him to keep at least remotely calm when horror came knocking on the door.

This, however… This caused him to scream out and take off running into the woods, rushing down one of the many branching paths. Perhaps the one reason he kept himself within his body was that the presence of the calming Shard remained within him, promising peace should it be found. He could only try to focus.

That thing would not leave him.

---

The bed was sick. A sickbed, yes, but the bed just felt so sick after an entire day spent there. He could not see, he could barely move, he could just cough, writhe and, occasionally, breathe. It was starting to take its toll. He was starting to question what was real and what was not. He was starting to doubt if he would ever do what he set out to do.

But more importantly, he was positively going insane thanks to the yellow pegasus that fluttered around him nearly all day.

He preferred not to listen, but every word she said reeked of the same saccharine stench that haunted this whole entire place. She made no sense, she simply did not work in his realm of understanding. If only not for the pain reactions to every single little thing, he would have probably tried to shut her up. By any means necessary.

Yes, he would.

---

The worst part was that it looked alive. It really, really had no right to.

Torn. Cut. Mangled. Broken. Limbs twisted, like if it had dropped from a tremendous height, only to survive through some hellish means, and shamble on. Steel bolted into the writhing flesh. Dried blood on the swayed chin, erratic twitches of the head. It instilled such dread that he barely felt before.

The Errors felt like a defiant force of the universe, they could simply unthink him out of being should they ever want to - but they chose to stalk him down the twisting curves of the world gone wrong, for reasons that he hoped he would never find out. They felt so utterly wrong, so far from his nature that only his mind truly feared them. The rest merely denied their existence.

But this was a Victim. This was something made so sickeningly twisted. Something subjected to inexplicable pain. Victims of the age. Victims of the mind. Victims of the trade. Victims of their ways. He ran, ran and ran, away from what filled his gut with a mix of animistic dread and hopeless pity. The drilling pain in the back of his head projected images onto his eyes as he rushed through the forest, barely evading trees, flashlight miraculously still in grip. He almost heard it say something. It was so wrong.

It got worse. They were this way because of him. They were made this way because of him. He was connected, he knew. His conscience went off like a siren, drowning him in feelings of pure hatred directed at none other but himself. Heavy, uneven steps behind him, deep breaths haunting far ahead of where the creature was, he only saw them again and again, lying on the dirty floor of the horrible ritual room. If only he could have known. He would just have come. So often he saw them all, but never took real action. Dead, dead, deceased. Cases closed.

Blurry-eyed and devoid of hearing all but his worked breath and flow of blood, the unicorn eventually tripped, ramming his head into one of the fake trees. Taken by panic, he struggled to pull himself out, his horn having made a hole in the all-too-soft material the “trees” were made of. Huffing and gasping, Fixer hyperventilated, tearing a piece of wood out with himself, and falling back onto the road. Scrambling to get up, he cast a blurred look at the path in front of him, and felt the race within his head come to a stop. A flashing light blinded him. It flashed red, white and blue.

He opened his eyes again, shielding them with a hoof.

How the…

In the deeps of the forest there was now a crime scene. Surrounded by the same tape that was on the post, it took up a small opening near a pond. It was on that tape that he tripped. The police carrier light bars, installed on boulders, shone with familiar dim colors, illuminating the crowded trees around. These same boulders, perhaps in a twisted idea of a joke, had the letters “LPPD” painted on them with grey paint.

“I must find it. It is leading me. Problems fixed.”

Coughing and fighting to regain his composure, he stopped his breath to listen out for the horrible, haunting sounds. The image of the Victim sprung up within his mind, sending him onto his haunches from yet another attempt to stand up. Luckily, the creature could no longer be heard. In its condition, it would doubtlessly make a lot of noise with each movement, noise that he would probably never forget after the one encounter they had with each other. Fixer concluded that the creature must not have been able to keep up. It seemed that he was able to outrun it, even though it was barely an impressive feat - the nightmarish contortions of its body were unlikely to be any help in chasing him down.Perhaps it was wise to fear that it could appear out of nowhere, or that there would be more of them, but fear was not a helper. Even though he found the crime scene in panic, he knew better than to see this as anything good. Panting relentlessly, he thought back to the Shard, and felt his mind fall to ease, if only ever so slightly.

He had to look. Somewhere, something would point him onward, and then again, as many times as he would need to, until he would be finally reunited with his one source of reason. Memories of the shard brought him some peace.

----

- Oh, by the… the stench in this place.

- Careful with the steps, they are steep. These maniacs hid it well. Water suppression, all the latest. They are well-equipped with decent mages.

- It’s more than mages. I can feel it… makes me reel. Do you feel it? It’s so unnatural.

- Can’t say. Looks mostly like any underwater cultist ritual chamber I've been to.

- Lt., this really doesn't seem like the time for jokes.

- I’m serious. I've been to four, just not underwater. But generally they aren't so… clean.

- Apart from the corpses, you mean.

- These are in every one. Now, they said they should be… oh fuck. Oh, dear fuck, what is wrong with them?...

---

“Piece it together. Piece it together, what you saw. Back. ”

It was just a pond surrounded by rocks with light bars. No evidence markers, no bodies, nothing else. The only place of interest was the pond, it had to be checked, he knew it did. No thought to all the improbabilities. They had become commonplace enough not to deserve his time in a moment like this.

The water was murky, dark. Fixer’s lamp did not pierce through. Not a thing could be seen on the surface - no otherwise ever-present dead greenery, nothing. It made his eyes go even blurrier than they already were, sending him wobbling in place after having merely looked at it for a few seconds. Disregarding the side effects, he had figured that something may have been in it. The rest was barren, and if it was not, it was irrelevant.

Upon inspection, there was a fitting object which to prod with - an elongated stone. It was not too big, but the ripples, sound and general post-impact feeling in the horn would tell him if it hit something in the pond. Having set the lamp head on a boulder, Fixer took to submerging the pebble, and almost immediately it struck something. As it glided over the object, it became clear that whatever it was, it had to be big. Not a simple shape, there were drops, angles. Something solid.

“What I want to hear…”

He walked up to the ominous body of water. The dull magical aura inside showed where his prod was - it had hit a straight patch, somewhere it could be placed, so it would not have meant the loss of his tool if he let go of it. He had to - the flashlight was necessary now, to poke better into the murk. Simultaneous telekinesis was not something he could muster with a fever-ridden mind and an aching head, not to say anything of the exhaustion after the chase. It still sent erratic lightning down his spine just thinking about it.

Once he returned with the lamp, though, there was no need for it. In the seconds that he spent having turned around, the pool had already been illuminated - the pebble shone brightly now, much better than the unicorn’s aura, it was…

“Once shattered.”

The Shard. It was his Shard, not the stupid stone, not anymore. It was there, it wanted to teach him of his blindness, so that he may be guided better, and realize the imperfection which he bore still. It called him into the murk where the structure stood, it was so close. Fixer gladly obeyed, walking closer, and closer, and finally stepping into the pond. As he reached out to grab his prize, his enthralled gaze was met with an unfitting reflection in the otherwise dark waters.

He was not alone.

He truly was blind. He had let his search for relief get in the way of thought, hearing and sight. He never noticed the distortion, the rips, the horrid noise. The Shard sung such similar melodies, only they did not feel so wrong. He had no excuse.

lright here not in Come in! right doing here?

Right behind him. The reflection was so wrong that the water had begun to dissipate, if only to escape. Standing in place would mean the same fate for him.

No, no, no, get away, GET AWAY.

at what king yyjyy yyy are us thin all DANGER

He rushed to the Shard, but it floated in the air, evading him, leading him down the steps and under, there where the underwater gateway lead. His eyes showed triple, but doubt was not allowed. Reality rippling like the water which he prodded with such ignorance, he galloped down and into the dark tunnels, the lamp floating behind as an afterthought of his telekinetic leash.

yyjyjyyyyy ome back kkhhkh come back err here y’ DANGER us there

He ran and ran, once more chased into the unknown by the unexplainable. Just when enough of his mind had gathered up to conjure up a proper thought, another sound entered the screeching, dripping cacophony. Heavy thuds and wheezes.

“THEY LURE. THEY ALWAYS LURE.”

He could not escape. Dull grey stone walls around him, reality folding onto itself behind, and a horribly mutilated fragment of something past ahead. The lamp caught the charging Victim with its sourceless light. He looked horror in the face.

A young mare, she stumbled ahead, steel bolts in her twisted legs. Her coat bloodstained and milky, she lifted her head, a horrible steel contraption covering up her eyes. On her face, symbols were cut in deep.

“Victims show signs. Broken. Shattering. Piece together.”

- DANGER

A bone-twisting swing of her leg made his inner being wince, but his mind was no longer there. He saw the signs. They felt so wrong.

The blinking force of disruption behind him was catching up, eating up the world in seamless jumps.

- DANGER

The mangled, defiantly living body mere steps ahead brought its angling leg down on him, the sturdy steel magnifying the hurt of the impact. But it… she had already shown him. They felt so, so wrong.

Her jaw, part disconnected from the skull, moved. A voice silent, yet perhaps even more blood-curdling than the roar of the Error behind, spoke out:

De… tec… tive…

Fixer’s eyes and reason saw no escape. He would not get up in time, she would take him down again. He would not crawl back, he would be lost to the broken whirlpool. He would lay there and then he would be no more.

But his mind and passion saw the comforting bloodied shard float behind the poor Victim, placing itself into a section on a door that was so close. In a flash of a second, the signs and clues ran a saw through his head.

“Once broken. Shattering. Can fix. Will fix. No compliance Broken key. Diamond rough. Fuel consumed. Template. Fix. Template input. Cleanse source. Pillars one two three four five six. Can shape. Can fix. Reform. Home.”

He swirled in memories which he could not possibly hope to understand. That relieved him. He knew he was not supposed to. He never understood.

That was good.

Because now, he did. If only for a moment, right before seething destruction would erase him.

The Orb… - Fixer looked up at the torn, blurring visage of the poor girl - ...I’m so sorry.

A violent cough left Fixer’s mouth as he took in what had to have been his last, bitter breath, but instead of blackness and peace it brought radiance and flight. The roars grew more and more silent, but they did not disappear. As the wind threw the unicorn’s eyelids open, he realized that his lungs would melt on, and that the dread-instilling mess of alien thoughts would now reside somewhere in his head.

He was being taken away. The Shard - the wonderful Shard - it stung him in the same place on his chest, and now he was being dropped off on the upside. He knew he did something right. He knew he would be rewarded. The signs, they were shown to him, and he could remember.

“Oh, so wrong.”

Fixer nearly smiled a delirious smile as his body crashed down to the ground, landing on the same patch of the fake forest where the Victim found him. Through the hollering pain in his head and the near-blindness in his eyes, he still recognized the post.

Feverishly uplifted, he sprang back up on his hooves and limped around for the lamp. There was no time to waste, as surely the orange Error would catch up to take him away from the truth.

It took a moment of realization for him to see that what he landed on was much softer than the wooden floor. Should that have been the case, he would certainly not have been standing up, as the injuries from such a fall were bound to be grave. He could not have gotten lucky twice - the poor Victim’s swing only left him bruised and cut, with no significant damage. Having set out ahead to where clarity awaited, Fixer took a glance underneath.

He was walking on a sea of corpses.

Oh… fuck, oh shit, oh how could…

No panic allowed, he pointed his light ahead and rushed on past the post. It was devoid of the police tape, but somehow, he already knew what it said.

The writing said “ORB”.

Tangled limbs and open wounds, the dead bodies still acted as soil for the trees, which spiralled into the ceiling still. That ceiling had begun to leak, and from the cracks a liquid started to drop - it was blood, he knew the smell.

It was black.

- De… tec… tive…

Frantically maneuvering among the corpses, Fixer ran on, now certainly under chase. He questioned no more, for that would take time. He could not waste time.

He saw it. The perfect, shining, round grey Orb on a pyramidal pedestal so close to him, elevated above the sea of corpses. He could fit it in his hooves. And sure as it were, the Shard levitated above the treasured artifact. A whole hatch opened in his reeling mind, draining the anxiety away. There would be only one last stretch necessary, and he would finally understand. He would do what he was told. What he was meant to.

If only the bodies would stop flashing pictures in his head, telling him how they were gone and how he and his lot did nothing to prevent that. They guilted him. And that took time.

De… tec… tive…

Finally, he was there, heavy steps behind him and loud cracks all the same. So many bones cracked, allowing passage to what, by right, had to have been part of the body pit. But it was fruitless. He threw himself towards the perfect Orb.

And landed on a rough wooden floor. A door smashed open.

The last thing to go through his mind on top of the otherworldly knowledge was disappointment.

“We were so close.”

Nagging Resemblance

The flicker. The greyish light. It could not have been, and yet it was, floating in the air. It called to him, drifting further and further away down the chiseled passway.

He was the only one who could see it. The only one allowed. The only one worthy. All it wanted was someone who could understand, someone who could take its brilliance in, so that the deeper purpose may be fulfilled. None that ever found it were worthy.

No matter how many superstitious, savage sacrifices and rituals would take place in its name, The Orb was dim in the dark of the catacombs. It only drew its followers more and more insane… or, perhaps, it was their own obsession that did it.

Now, however, it has found one who could understand. One worthy.

Fixer made step after step towards the calm light, his legs stiff and leaden, his head in a whole other place. So soon it would stop drifting and finally let him bask in its otherworldly knowledge, mere snippets of which flashed through his mind, turning him giddy.

If only something small and insignificant did not feel so horribly wrong.

Why has it forsaken him?

Why, after all this, disappear again, and throw him even deeper into the bowels of this world?

If only he knew. The rules were not his to set. If there were rules at all.

The one thing left for him was to persevere, to find out what happened… to find the one thing that gave him determination in the darkest hour, only to fade away.

Livid and exhausted, Fixer sat, his back pushing up against a bed. At the very least that took care of his pounding head and shaking legs.

It was yet another nightmarish installation that kept stinging him with incomprehensible memories. A rather big house, though not one that you would call a mansion. Something you would well find in a countryside, perhaps - the interior was not rich, but not cheap either. Practical. Absolutely surreal and in no way appropriate for the series of events that brought him there, but practical, rational. It could be appreciated.

The unicorn tensed up at a screech and a definite sound of steps somewhere above him. Having spent a couple of seconds with his ears perked, he was getting ready to take off at the sound of danger, but it soon went away.

Bullshit, - he spat out, feeling up the bruises on his chest.

This kept on happening. It had been a decent amount of time since he found himself in there - that time was enough to tell him that the house also doubled as a maze. A haunted maze at that.

“Wish I could still believe it’s all just my mind playing tricks. Say it’s all superstition, that there’s nothing supernatural. Hell, right now I wish I knew what natural is.”

The layout of the rooms and corridors made absolutely no sense. Bedrooms lead right into parts of kitchens, living rooms turned into tool sheds. The rooms themselves tended to disappear as soon as he left them and reappear in other places. The murk and the dull hum that persisted in the maze made it hard to decide whether it was, ultimately, his mind playing tricks, or the architecture rearranging itself behind him. What little light there was came from the windows, which seemed to all be smudged and blurred on the outside, only a few rays making it through the thick layers. That was well welcomed, as Fixer much preferred darkness to the horror that started whenever the nonexistent grey hell showed itself.

Besides, the lamp head from the office in the forest worked still, miraculously so, although its reliability took a hit. Every now and then it would start to flicker violently, or simply turn off for a lasting minute. He was starting to see a pattern with the flickering, too. It lead into what was the biggest problem in the current situation.

"Fixed it."

There was something else in the maze with him.

Very often he would hear the wooden floors creak, as if something shifted over them in the darkness, the doors flinging open and shutting at random. Additionally, there were audible steps sounding off in distant corners. These steps had a distinct sound to them - and after the encounter in the “forest”, Fixer was rather literally afraid that he knew who could be making them. The fact that there were multiple theories did not help much, as all of them were less than pleasant.

Lastly, whenever those sounds came from somewhere close, ringing a hum of familiar distortion - or wheezes - the lamp would begin to flicker. Then, he could swear that there were horribly, disfigured, shattered shapes on the far end on the light, but they disappeared each time the flickering died down. It occurred to him that it was not too wise to keep the light up so much, as whatever was out there could very well find him, a torch in the dark, but the darkness was so thick that there was no adapting to it. Not even for him. At the very least, he found a way to shut the light off - giving the lamp a kick did the job, the light coming back from one more.

“Help them. Find a way.”

A pressing headache washed over his head once again and left, surely to return in a few minutes. Fixer wished he had a plan to work on during that break. Unfortunately, all attempts to draw some sort of map failed, if only using his own blood that leaked from his mouth, so he was as much in the dark as he was before. Health concerns took a tertiary position on his priority list.

Once again, he took a look at the diary. A new page appeared there when he was thrown in. As always, it came with a message, one cryptic as ever. He had already looked through it, multiple times at that. There was little else to do when he took refuge in rooms to regain stamina.

“Day 2(?)

What a mess. That is the one thing I know for sure right now. This is an utter mess. I barely remember… I barely want to remember.

Time will tell if anything I went with is going to work. As it stands right now, my temporary residence plan is taking hits. Not only am I stuck in a hospital, but I also feel the part. Now, I have plans that turn that to my advantage… only that does not make up for what is going on. Really wish I could buy that it’s all just a fever I caught in there.

WON’T LET OUT
PUZZLING
DARE DEFY
FOLLOW FOLLOWght be suspecting something, can’t be sure. Sure isn’t a flying disaster, but something seems wrong about her. Difficult to track, too. Seems she’s one of the few who actually work for a living and don’t have much time to visit some weird fuck in the hospital. Will have to work her out somehow. Or at least explain that not everyone shares her obsession. I swear, I get a stomach ache just when I look at them.

The rest were around, but I must have passed out then. Will continue later. Should secure the book, hell will break loose if any of them find it.

My head is killing me. Hard to think. Maybe I’m just tired… or maybe my plan may just get easier to execute.

In the worst way possible. As always.”

The huge letters, left over a part of the text, sure got one thing right - it was all very puzzling. He had no way of tracking down time, but it must have been a while since he found himself on the old wooden planks, surrounded by darkness and an amalgamation of endless rooms. Most of that time was spent being subjected to the ever-changing maze and the disturbing sounds and things in the dark. Not much progress was made.

Granted, not much more would be made if he were to just sit down and wait for something. The time was for him to move out again, to look for anything of note in the creeping darkness, and to hope that whatever was out there stayed out there.

The storm was getting bad. Raindrops were falling on his head, cleansing him somewhat, but they could not wash off that what was the worst of all. The fear.

Lightning struck. Illuminated for a second, the street assaulted his eyes with more disgusting colors, boiling up the anger that went dormant after it was done. Even that, however, was not enough to quench the fear he felt.

Panic. Plain and simple. He could not afford it, and yet there he was. He ran as fast as he could, aiming for the encroaching treeline.

He was afraid. Not of what he had done, or of the terrible images he kept seeing, or of the repulsion that the world cast upon him.

He was afraid of how calming what he just did was to him. How clean and fulfilled he felt. That shattered everything. What used to be a plain plan fell to pieces. There was doubt. There was definite doubt. It was that doubt that drove him to flee, it was that doubt that made him question himself. What little remained of the worthless, scrunched up, brainwashed being. That also made him fear - the better part of him.

A coward in the wrong place and the wrong time can do so much wrong.

Fittingly enough, just as he was about to rush into the enchanted forest, a snarl came from nearby. Pairs of glowing green eyes emerged all around him. But those were not the manifestations of the powers that he meddled with now.

These were timberwolves. They sensed fear.

They preyed on it.

Supposedly, there was an end to everything. Fixer part agreed and part disagreed with the statement.

On the one side, his calm was certainly to be scraped at the bottom.

On the other, the labyrinth was rather endless.

The only thing that changed in the time that he spent roaming the endless dark corridors and rooms was the fact that he was starting to really lose it. It took a lot of resolve to simply move on from what he had seen before, but it seemed like that was not going to be a problem after the injection of sheer resolve he felt upon seeing the Shard in the “forest”. He looked for it still, hoping to see the glimmer of bloodstained glass somewhere along the way, wishing against fate that it would show up and guide him.

The insane mess of a world laughed at him and had him run on in his little maze. That alone would probably not have been enough to discourage him, for he had seen reality bend unto itself before, and it would not be the most unlikely thing for it to twist and bend again. It was a possibility. He would just do something right and there would be progress.

Unfortunately, however, the haunting flickers and sounds kept on happening. With how long they have been going on, no proper estimation could have been made, but Fixer could just swear that they were getting ever closer. Another room inspected, with nothing of note found, just more of the same, thrown in together, another hallway passed, and then - a startling breath and heavy thuds on the floor, the terrifying presence so near… The light would then flicker, and the sounds disappear in a distorted, broken up echo.

At first he thought that these things were just trying to scare him into further insanity - something they were starting to do a really good job at. Among the shapes in the blinking light, shapes that seemed to be very much real and no less horror-inducing for it, he now often times saw things that had to be hallucinations. For a moment, there would be a bloodied spike coming out of the floor, a limp body hanging from it, a body hanging on a noose, large chunks of flesh, even a gaping hole in the floor - or, other times, he would see some other pony, completely unharmed and properly dressed, stare at him from no more than a meter away, piercing him in that half a second with their faceless gaze. And so on, and so forth - only getting worse as time passed.

“The shimmering dark light… the impossible geometry… oh sweet heavens, why? Why indeed.”

Eventually, it got so bad that he no longer wanted to open his eyes. The things he saw in the blinking light burned through his head, the memories cooking in place. It had become clear that with how frequent and how violent the visions had become - one would haunt him nearly every five minutes - that he was supposed to have fallen to them. But even though the insanity graduated ever upwards, the doors banging far away and the corridors sometimes leaving him into dead ends, turning into entirely new sprawls as soon as he looked away, he kept going. The fever slowed him, the horror well-near paralyzed him, but he was neither dead nor hopelessly insane.

From the few memories that he still had, Fixer knew one thing well. Everyone has a limit. Push them past it, and they will fall.

This horrible concoction of a world has well exceeded the line that he considered to be his limit. The sheer fact that he was not dead or climbing the walls was wrong. He came to the only conclusion that his burning thoughts conceded to him.

Who are you? - the unicorn yelled into the dark, splattering blood with a violent cough after what felt like hours of not having to talk, - Why are you helping me?

He looked around, praising all that was good in the world gone wrong for the flashlight keeping up a steady light. Another long hallway with a hint of a window far ahead. If anything would appear, it would be either in front of him or behind him.

just hell trying he to tto to help

At the end of the day, it was impossible to get used to an Error’s presence. When he heard the words, his whole beaten being tensed and reeled so hard that the bruises from the encounter in the catacombs hurt again.

Fixer panted rapidly - the flickering had begun. He still tried to find where the irrevocably wrong non-entity was, if only to look his end in the face, his mind not yet having processed just what that thing screeched out. The flickering intensified

donn Tdon’t please

Who are you?

don’t shh shh only plea on wants she to HELP don’t

The lamp finally caught it - the same possibility-defying kaleidoscope of broken pieces of the world, twisting and twitching in place, standing there where minutes before there was only darkness.

It was not coming to him.

What is going on?

don’t RUN

The Error’s last word came out so twisted and disrupted that it nearly shattered Fixer’s eardrums, but he heard it well. What was there that still had the ability to think straight noticed that, directly afterwards, it disappeared in one of the flickers, as if it was never there. With that, his vision finally unblurred, his few collected thoughts put together an intriguing theory.

What was there that wanted to survive, however, took to frantic galloping down the hallway, as another sound emanated from behind:

what are you do DAn in here GEROUS

He could not even swear, panting and violently spitting what had to have been blood, rushing down the corridors, infrequent light showing him the way down the guts of the insane halls. The occasionally lit maze of corridors and rooms turned into an endless branching tunnel with no light at all, safe for the lamp head which blinked as feverishly as its owner did.

why don’t you DANGER inn jj jj

This one did not just go after him, unraveling all on its way, like the others did. It would reappear ahead of him, striking from dead ends and secondary passways, shaping the labyrinth into a design of its own. He felt like an animal being herded.

stAY IN

Much like livestock lead to the slaughter, he only complied for fear of what may happen should him and the Error collide. It chose corridors for him, near electrifying his tail whenever it got too close, forcing out an exhausted gallop. As the last of his strength was beginning to drain, the hectic run suddenly came to a close, his hooves not finding solid ground anymore. Fixer slipped and slid - no, flew - down, surrounded by darkness, the only remaining thing being the lamp, which got released from his aura. He was so exhausted that he barely took the time to get scared by the sudden fall, as it allowed him a moment to take a breath. Better yet, as he flew, the light stopped flicking - the ray only rotated around now, as the flashlight twirled in the air. That meant that he went so fast that the Error could not catch up - or did not do so at all.

That tossed aside, a couple of seconds later he did at last let out a short shriek, put to a stop by something very big and very soft - soft enough for him not to injure himself from what had to have been a great fall.

The loud hum in his head and the disorientation after the terrible run left very little room for question or panic in his head. He just slipped out of consciousness, giving in to the pain in every part of his body, and assumed that he just landed into a gigantic hay pile.

Strangely enough, he was quite correct.

She just doomed herself. It could have been so simple, but she would not have it the easy way. Violent cracks, thunderous bashing - or was it thunder itself? - and frantic rustling. All by herself, she drove the pack away. They thudded, murmuring and cracking, as far away as they could, to save their barks.

They left him to fend for himself.

- Come on… You’re gonna make it.

There was no easy way out anymore. He felt himself being loaded on her back, coughing and barely conscious. His hind leg, stuck in one of the fallen wolves, got in the way, nearly throwing his body off her. The jolt of pain brought some clarity of thought about.

- Why didn’t ya just stay in? It’s dangerous business, going out the door at this hour.

She would bring him back in. To her place, probably. It was much closer than the hospital, and even he could feel that he needed immediate medical attention. Nothing more than a bandage and something to clean the wounds on his chest, but those alone were important. She would leave him at her place, she would take care of him and she would leave him no choice.

There was no room for doubt anymore. He started the job, and then he tried to drop it. There was no dropping it. This was his second chance. No choice but to be worthy.

- Don’t worry. We’ll fix ya right up.

No.

He would.

Something was rotten. Deeply rotten, straight to the core, and decomposing, all around him. The stench was so heavy that it went past being mind-numbingly odorous and straight into electrically rancid - so much so that it woke him up. Perhaps it was for the better - had he spent even more time lying in that putrid place, he may just have succumbed to the toxicity.

A surreal addition to a picture that has long ago forsaken the bounds of reality, the gigantic pile of hay towered above the spacious underground compartment of the maze. That is, of course, considering that there was any connection between the two. Fixer, climbing out the hay’s depths and struggling to breathe, assumed that he may just have been transported to a different place entirely.

That assumption, however, took a hit as his hooves broke through and got him out, most of him miraculously largely intact. Opening his eyes and tearing up at the stench, he saw above him what must have been where he came from - a twisting organism of rooms and corridors, with a few lights that barely made it possible to see it from where he was. It rippled and smudged second by second, changing before his very eyes, sending quaint waves of chewed up sounds down, just enough to tingle the ear. It also stood on thin air - or, at least, the section of thin air that appeared to be infested with the rippling and the distortion. The shifting house just hung above him, gladly showing off its ever morphing structure.

It was then, perhaps, somewhat helpful that the awful smell in the lower half was so strong that Fixer could not focus on the sheer wrongness of the vista above. Quickly switching to breathing with just his mouth, he had fortune in finding the lamp head lying nearby still in working condition, as a quick shake showed. Shattered reality or no shattered reality, the stench of that place was so heavy that escaping it became the top priority. Even through his mouth, the air tasted foul, like something badly rotten.

Coughing, he stabilized his grip on the lamp, and aimed the ray directly below the hay pile.

Oh, are you kidding me.

“Sweet, merciful… how can a mare talk so many apples and still live?”

As beneficial to the task as their visits were, they were starting to drive him insane in more ways than one. They each showed signs, signs that made his inner being electrify at the sheer thought of them, and were simply wrong in most meanings of the word.

This one, however, took it deeper than most others.

- Sure you don’t want an apple? Look at it, it’s darn tasty.

- I’m sure. Please, I’m having a headache here.

- Ah, come on, what’s wrong with ya? It’s an apple! It’s the best thing against a headache.

This one was just plain puzzling. She not only made him want to hurl on the same bases as the rest, but she forced him into conflict with himself.

Even from what little he saw of her in the brief moments when he could open his eyes without his head mercilessly punishing him, it was clear that she was by no means inept. It was in the motions, in the body language, in her voice. She was a smart one, her head was not just there to breathe and stare and blink, like so many others’. Oh, no. In fact, hers took on more functions than any of them.

Not only could she very clearly think quick and think well, she also had it to deceive those less knowing into thinking her a dumb hillbilly. It would, by all means, be most others’ first guess - that they were dealing with a dimwit who could not add two and two together, the freckles, the tan and the ridiculous western hat fitting the image perfectly. He remembered the notes. Honesty she was, but deceit she employed. It took him time to realize that - even he had trouble figuring out who she really was behind the charade. She was dangerous. To those who went against her business and, therefore, to him.

That alone was bad enough, but that was not all. Probably by some cruel coincidence, she drew on a petty disgust that made it all the more difficult to think.

She talked about the freaking apples with it. Apples. Apples, apples, apples.

He hated apples.

In all the chaos of the world gone wrong, Fixer’s main strive was survival, that much was true. A close second, though, was finding out what lead to the horrid catastrophe - for what else could have caused this? - and, consequently, learning more about himself. Not a blank slate, no, but a very grey one, he tried to catch onto any memory or picture he saw, even if they were so fleeting.

This one was an exception.

In the current situation, he really would rather not remember his hatred for apples.

“Where did it even… how… why so many???”

They were everywhere. They littered the floor, squashing with half of his steps, they piled up near the wooden posts that went up into the darkness, they were all over the place. Rotten, mouldy, decomposing, it was them that created the awful smell. The disgust and repulsion they caused were not only physical, but also mental, an anger swelling in his stomach.

As he was getting acquainted the new feeling, there was a faint rattle of metal. That perked his ears up, the lamp turning to light up the spot in the apple-infested dungeon. When it did, the anger had to spare the seat to something the unicorn was better acquainted with at the moment - terror.

- De… thec… thive?

“What have they done to you?..”

It sat in the dark, nudging to try and get away, but to no avail. It tried to shield its eyes from the light, but the effort was futile and meaningless - not only could its legs no longer turn in that direction, but its eyes were already covered by a tough metal bracer. Pale and drained, the tortured form instilled the same mix of fear and pity as the one he encountered before. A stern metal chain roped around its neck, almost certainly choking it, twisting the bones and confining it to the wooden post that it connected to. The tight noose prevented the creature from possibly rushing out at the unicorn, leaving it to reside on a pile of disgusting rotten apples.

Unable to pry his eyes away from the Victim, Fixer walked closer to it, his eyes twitching from the memories stinging him in the back of his head. Like the other one, it felt familiar.

No, not it. They deserved better.

This was an earth stallion, a little younger than him. He could not find a name in the swirling whirlpool of memory, but this one used to have a personality. They all did. It was not proper to call them like that.

And so, Fixer stopped, standing as close to the Victim as he could without putting himself in danger. Half voicing his thoughts and half hoping for an answer, he asked:

Why are you chained?

- Defective…

“What?”

For a second, it seemed like the Victim had actually answered him, showing sentience, the ability to communicate. Perhaps, it was not just a nightmarish monster, drawing on something from his past.

Only then Fixer saw his mouth - bloodied and bludgeoned, it was almost completely devoid of teeth. His tongue hung near aimlessly, bloated and blackened, much like it should have been with the murderous pressure on the neck. It merely misspoke the only word that it could utter, mocking the unicorn further.

- De… thec… thive?

An accidental inhale through the nose sent Fixer into a coughing fit, nearly having him vomit. Nigh stepping into the danger zone, he shook his head, and in that motion, his eye caught something else in the dark. Too taken by the stench and the repulsion, he dismissed it before. He brought the light over the rest of the chamber.

“Won’t let out.”

It was a prison.

There were lines of cells there, stacked up like sections in a barn. Wooden plates and steel bars held the figures inside hostage.

They were all Victims.

Each cell held one of the mangled creatures. Near devoid of life, most of them only breathed. Locked up in their quarters, so much like livestock, they stood apathetic. That is, until he brought a light to them.

Then, they woke up.

De… thec… thive?

- Detective.

- De- tec- tive.

- De- tec- tive!

And so they gurgled, muttered and screamed, thrashing in place, as if his appearance brought them motivation. The bars held them in, despite their best efforts, but they thrashed and moaned, and Fixer just stood there, paralyzed in combined disgust, horror and regret.

“Why do you feel so guilty now?..”

yyjjyyy not safe here

He panted, trying his best to stay on the sane side and prevent himself from inhaling the putrid rotten fumes so as not to pass out at the worst moment. There was a shorter time limit now, he had to do something fast. If not the fumes, then the unfortunate creatures would be the end of him. Near frantic, Fixer paced around, trying to find something that would give him a clue.

“Puzzling… dare defy?..”

As he cast his eyes to the murky, shifting display above, he saw it. Something so obvious.

“Dare defy.”

Above the Victim by the post, a big wooden panel hung, flickering and rippling under the light. On it there once was something of a menu, or a price list, nearly each item beginning with “Apple-”. At the top there was a stylized title, “Sweet Apple Acres”, which yet again stung a memory into his head, but what actually mattered were the familiar letters, written over it all:

"STAY AWAY

DO NOT DISTURB

DO NOT DISLODGE

DO NOT OPEN UP

GOOD LUCK"

He knew now. Perking his aching head, he turned around with improved strife. He had no time to question the message, not now and not those that came before - not when he saw his treasured beacon twirling in the air, not at all defying his expectations.

As he gripped the Shard with the aura, empowered enough to still have control over the lamp, he breathed in and took to work.

He inhaled and exhaled, the foul residue of the stench far from enough to discourage him. Now he saw more, the dark giving way before him and his sparkling, blooded companion. He thrashed through the hidden subsections, leaving deep cuts on the metal that kept the bars in place, he lodged the crude, distorted cogs that enslaved their contents, leaving the dual symbols on them smudged and desecrated. He tore the grand chain that held its Victim with what one saw as but a piece of glass, and he relished in the liberation, both his and the others’.

no what gooD no stay insidegood what for you doing?!

Then he watched the horde of shambling, broken figures cast shambling, broken shadows as the cloth-covered wall behind them ripped itself into eldritch greyness. Sickening colors assembled yet again, for the first time facing him in a state other than crippling fear and confusion.

how you DARE? what do shreds what did you tore to her

But as he faced it, he suddenly saw his shining star no more. The Shard disappeared from his grip, almost as if it was never there. Betrayed, he stood there, watching the cerulean Error launch itself at him, another one skipping and blinking and pacing around. That other one looked almost like it tried to hold the first one off, placing obstructions in its path, for them to only fall to bits.

It was orange, the other one. It looked a little more consistent, but never seemed to move - it disappeared from one place, reality roaring for two, and reappeared in another. Its fragments projected the same kind of warm, wrong images that the rest did. A treeline. A load of sacks. A bag of coins. An early sun. A late moon. A plowed field. A happy family. Apples. Apples. Apples.

He hated apples.

It sparkled somewhere far from Fixer, and carried him away from the deafening screams, maddening noise and repulsive odor.

- No, you see, it’s not your apples that I have a problem with. It’s what they represent.

- Really? What’s there to be wrong about an apple?

- They aren’t made properly.

- Ah, shucks, that’s crazy talk! You just never had good ones.

- No, you don’t understand. It doesn’t matter if there are good ones or bad ones. The problem is, they are ultimately not up to snuff, not anymore.

- Naw, I don’t get it. What’s there to be up to, exactly?

- Apples are forced on us as every course of your fucking dinner. Apples are here, apples are there, apples are fucking everywhere. Half our food is apples. And yet, they ultimately fail as a reliable food product. With all their sorts, the majority tastes the same, but that isn’t even what I’m getting at. I know, there used to be other kinds, those died out - because they got offed. Not tasty, not delicious, not sweet, they just got capped out because someone thought it was better if they stuck to the ones that felt nice. And still they didn’t fucking consider the fact that the nice ones rot like all hell, that their sweetness ties you to the stupid taste, that once you try one that deviates from the bunch, you just throw it away, it’s not nice enough for you. You know what the old sorts had in them?

- Huh… yah, I do. Said they were tougher, more resistant to the touch. Did not rot as fast. Their lot could get poisonous too, though, and half the ponies could barely digest them. What are you getting at?

- I’m getting at how we have allowed apples to become just a bunch of overly sweet, overly nurtured, overly saccharine foods that rot as soon as you forget to give them proper FUCKING care. That is not what food is about, not when it needs to be nutritious and work for you, not the opposite. That is not what life is about, not when there are twenty four fucking murders in a city per month, not when there is filth everywhere, but we are painted a picture of sunshine and rainbows by those who will throw those few too tough to be chewed up out! Don’t you see? I know you are smart, how don’t you see it?

- Mr. Fixer… you really aren’t feeling well, are ya? Cause… I mean… woah.

Crushing headache.

- Ya know, I’d better get you some tea. Best thing for when you’re not y’self. I’ll be right back, and you stay inside. It’s dangerous out there. See? Everything’s fine. Be right back.

She was wrong and she would never be.

Author's Note

Google Docs versions are on a slight hiatus - to noone's great loss. They will be put up once the story's finished.

Grim Descent

He would stand there and look in the mirror. At least once per day he would put the bottle down and just stare at himself. A day of menial work, tracking down unfaithful wives and cheating husbands, going after runaways, beating answers out of those whose ugly mugs would eventually blur out in the salty, bitter afterthought of a life he lived when he came back. Same thing as before, a coat of paint applied. It never mattered. Day after day, he came back to his apartment and he would stand there, stuck in more ways than one.

He would stand there and look in the mirror.

Eventually, it stopped looking back.

He did not mind.

The discordant flourish of everything an eye would never want to see carried him sidestream, bodiless and thoughtless, thinking and aching. Ripped from the putrid mess below, he was rushed away, breaking up and blending into the non-reality that the world had become. For a second, he was again one with the world gone wrong, the other Errors’ screeching and yelling in their eagerness to erase him from their existence distancing further and further.

As the cut up record fizzled and mumbled in his ear a canary flow of mindmelting sounds, he felt himself being wrestled away by physicality.

Cell by cell, he was waking up, and each of those cells immediately reeled and screamed and retched as it realized what was happening to it. He could feel the hard stone floor and the wrongness of a million mistakes in every breath his pores made.

“Fix them.”

sorry

“You already have. Just do it again. No other choice.”

At least he could breathe.

“Nothing is wrong.”

- I must say, your agreement is a great relief for all of us. Any other means of achieving our goal was to be… unsavory.

- Look, Agent, can we just make one thing perfectly clear? I don’t want anything to do with your goals. I’m doing this part for the money and part so that you would stop knocking on my door every off day. I don’t care.

- Well, as disheartening to hear as it is, it is still a sign that you still have a sense of right and wrong. And let me tell you, Detective, it is a sense that is still tuned right. Remember that.

- Just give me the papers and get out.

- So be it, then.

The Agent had no face. He looked at him with his blinkless stare from behind the dark glasses and talked a mouthless speech from behind the oversized collar. His suited frame threw a slick shadow over the wall, where their delivery pulsated with its blood-red newborn shape.

Fixer had other things on his mind. His throat was like sand paper. He wondered if there still were drinks in the cabinet.

Insanity was not covering it anymore. The term was insufficent, the concept itself was insufficent. He rolled on the floor, aching and nearly fainting back into blackness. Still writhing from the contact with an Error, he tried his best at preventing the mind from pouring away through whatever open orifice there was.

He went on for so long, with so little to go off of. Trying to survive, trying to remember, trying to find out.

“Writhing… screaming… pathetic. They don’t work. They don’t work. Nothing is wrong.”

But the more he remembered, the worse it got. The things that would flash before him and then fade back into the murk of the subconsccious made him struggle to keep himself going. In his various assumptions, all this could have been many things. It started with kidnapping, then there was nothing, then there was insanity, then, for a brief moment, there was Hell, and then there was a theory that he tried to hold onto the hardest.

It was that something, or someone, had dealt away with the world as it was, and left a broken playground in its wake, populated with what remained of life and sentience. Fixer just got looked over - perhaps he was even not the only one, perhaps there would be a chance to find a survivor, a close soul with which to fix the world gone wrong. He thought that, perhaps, the fairytale menace Discord had broken out of his millenial imprisonment, or that some other merciless, incomprehensible elder deity took a glance at his old world and left a twisted reality there as a blink. But he would persevere, he would follow the signs and the steps, for some power still guided him and wanted him to succeed - to fix this place, and make everything go right again.

All that he could no longer think and be honest with himself. The pictures and the words and the places he saw… no, they could not have been all so convenient. He was not all so lucky. Why did he feel guilt so often? Why did the fear taste so different to the animal fright he expected to feel whenever a bent shape looked at him from the dark? Why were the messages always directly attacking him? What were they trying to imply, was he a part of all this? Fixer did not know. Fixer did not want to think.

Nevertheless, those questions crossed everything out, aside from Hell. Hell, however, seemed like a better choice than this. He did not know if it really was in the pits of Tartarus, like most used to say, but if it was, then this was clearly not a pit. This was a universe that consisted of things left over from a life past. This was a broken universe. Hell would have been different. He knew that, if only from passing knowledge. He tried to investigate his own mind on that account, finding it a better topic than his involvement in the catastrophe, biting his lips till they bled, his eyes closed so hard amoebic shapes had begun to spring up in the dark. Met with a burning pain, he shot up, brutally picked up from his joke of a rest.

His ears clogged up for a second, and for very good reason.

What is going on?! - he screamed out, if only to counter out the pressing screeching howl that filled the room, flashing and blinking, throwing papers around in a hurricane and emanating the same distorted ripple that he had heard so often.

Finally, as the noise had reached its peak, a bright colorless light skipped before the unicorn’s eyes and threw him back to the floor, thumping his body onto the cold stone, forcing him to stare out with the burn in the eyes.

So he stared.

It was himself.

And over his face, violently written letters read:

“CONSTANT DISTRACTION

NOT HELL

WE SEE

MUCH WORSE

FIXED ALREADY

NOW OR ELSE

WHAT IS YOUR

RATIONALE?”

They finally left him. Alone, he convulsed and groaned, the sickness taking over his body. It was so hard to think, and so easy to see. He opened his eyes, and saw things. They were no longer comforting. He shuddered and muttered, trying to keep away from them, his eyes shut and the blanket over his head.

Then, he would start hearing things.

Things that he was saying.

The only thing all of him was sure about was that he feared, and feared dearly.

It had become a blessing that one of the Victims had managed to land a hit on him. The moderate pain, pulsing from his shoulder and chest, allowed him to find something to focus on as his sanity took measures to reassemble itself. In a few minutes, he was still far from crystal clear, his head spinning and his hooves shaking, but it was an improvement. In that improvement, he saw reason to move on, an anger long pent up rising.

He trod the stone floors and examined the surroundings. A long corridor, littered with old papers, leading into many rooms - offices - with metal bars protruding from some of the stones, forming what used to be metal gates at certain points, defunct lights sticking from the sockets. Behind him was a set of stairs, but the door was just as dead as the one in the library from so long ago. He almost smirked when he recalled himself back to that point, so naïve and looking for logic, constantly thinking up theories to himself and trying to be reasonable.

Whatever reason this place had, it would not be understood by anything sane. He had an argument to prove that, too.

It was his own face, staring back at him from the end of the corridor, spastic letters covering it. So far away, he had trouble discerning the features - much unlike the letters - but it was clearly him. The dull, tired stare of someone deeply sick pierced the owner of a stare with a certain amount of mixed anxiety and determination. The same stitched light-brown vest, the same short mane, the same tears, blood spatters and wounds.

“Sweet, merciful… I just scared myself, didn’t I. Good fucking going.”

It was a portrait, illuminated by a visibly defunct firefly lamp. It was the only proper light source aside from the ghostly rays piercing through the barred windows and Fixer’s own lamp head, which was very fortunately still in his possession and mostly operational. To the left and right the paths branched into other rooms, secluded in complete darkness. Paying another look to himself, the unicorn shuddered, the sheer sight of it ultimately unsettling, and stepped a bit to the side, where a seat and a dead potted plant stood. Flashing the beam over some of the windows in the corridor, he realized that the words once written on them have decayed and gone smudged, but nonetheless, the look and feel of the place brought him back up to speed as to what this place might have been.

“This… this is my old precinct. What would it want with the precinct? Why does it matter? It’s been hell knows how long.”

A chill wind passed through the corridor, freezing him to the bone, both with the cold and with the thought that wind was never a good sign. Some of the papers flew by, indicating that the gust emerged from the branch on the right. In a rare moment, Fixer lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

“That’s far too sharp. Fuck’s sake, I barely even noticed the papers. How do I know that? Wonder what it was like before...”

He stood over the beaten murderer, staring him down and preventing any means of escape. The plan was for him to hide out in a number of his associates’ residences, each time coming up with a new lie and switching places until the fake documents would be done and prepared and he would flee. This one was particularly smart - having gone on a trail of unrelated places, he actually chose one of the apartments his family lived in, them being completely out of the question for the investigation. It seemed perfect, the police not having much to go on with how little evidence he left behind.

Little, but enough.

He pressed down on one of the murderer’s wounds, pushing a shriek out of him. He caught himself doing that more and more often. The murderer looked up and asked for one last thing before he would be taken away. His eyes showed dwindling hope - Frame Fixer, the officer that caught him and beat him to a pulp, was not the most sympathetic figure in the current situation. However, he was the only one, the response team still far away. By the time they came in, suspect casualties in LP would have most likely risen by one.

- C-can I just… just say goodbye to my daughter?

Fixer looked at him again. Beneath, he saw weak, backstabbing filth that murdered someone just to get a bigger cut off a contract. So miserable and worthless, with his eyes pleading for mercy.

He was still better than the rest.

The unicorn looked on as the murderer limped into one of the rooms, and listened to their hushed voices. The murderer told his daughter that daddy was not going to be coming back very soon. The murderer told his putrid-green, wretching tiny filly to be strong for mommy.

Saccharine, foolish, a lemon on her flank. Her father at least did the world some good by getting rid of one more like her. He had it in him to show strength and resolve to end someone else, someone even more worthless.

She would be even worse.

The old, newly warped precinct made Fixer feel uneasy. He shook his head, disregarding the thoughts and the images that flashed in it for a moment. Getting on with the system, he recalled the previous times he found himself in situations like this and reached for the notebook. True enough, it contained a new page.

The excitement was short-lived.

“DaFRAME FIxER IS CONSTANT DISTRACTION

NOT HELL NOT HELL NOT HELL NOT HELL

WE SEE THE SAME WE SEE THE SAME WE SEE YOU

MUCH WORSE THAN THIS MUCH WORSE YOU

WILL FIX YOU WILL FIX YOU WILL FIX YOU HAVE FIXED

DO WE SHARE THE RATIONALe others.”

The blood-stained memo book practically screamed the words from the portrait at him, mocking his attempt at getting an additional hint. It covered nearly all of the entry - whatever words were contained below were brutally blurred and smudged, even more so than the previous ones. He closed it with unsettling thoughts, trying his best not to think of how deeply he was involved in the horror around him. He would just go through whichever offices would open and then investigate the rest of the dark reflection of the LPPD precinct. Then, he would find his darling Shard and things would go quiet again. That was a good thing to focus on.

Much better than the portrait that pierced the portraitee’s soul whenever the latter looked at it. It was wrong. How could it be there? How could a portrait have been taken of him, when it showed the wounds and the marks he received in this twisted world? What did it mean?

Exactly the kind of questions that would deter him from progress.

“Stop thinking about it. Stop, I said. Nothing is wrong. Just look everything over, find something, and work off of that. Don’t look at him. He’s a portrait. He can’t do anything to you.”

Fixer stepped into the corridor, the lamp head levitating next to him and illuminating the doors. He wondered which one to choose, the tainted yellow glass of the offices preventing any possible outside inspection. Shaking ever so slightly from the remainders of the chill, Fixer made his choice and tried the handle of the first door on the right.

Piece of shit.

The handle broke right off. The unicorn furrowed a brow and contemplated kicking it out in order to be sure. Having stood in place for a few moments, he caught sight of the picture at the end and, regaining some caution, started with trying to wipe the dust off the window with his hoof. Maybe something would be visible then - perhaps, something was blocking the door as well.

The dust layer was rather thick, but just barely enough to veil anything not immediately visible in the office. Stretching his neck and eyes, Fixer looked into the window, blurred shapes of common police office furniture showing themselves to him in the light of the lamp. It could as well have been obstructing the view, the light’s reflection omnipresent on the glass - eventually, the unicorn decided to temporarily shoot it off, giving it a small shake, and looked again, his eyes adjusting to the dark.

Piece of shit, - he spat out, flinching back and feeling his heart race up at the sight in the office.

A dull, unmoving equine figure stood there, its head positioned exactly so that it would have been staring Fixer in the eyes had the yellow tainted glass not been there. A brief moment of panic and confused thinking eventually passed, as he realized what it was.

“Just like in the cellar with the fucking mirror…”

A ponnequin. It was not visible before due to the flash, the thin lines difficult to read in the dark, mostly obstructed by a table and a seat. Now, it stood there, wearing a murky dress behind the murky glass, and made the unicorn who looked back shiver yet again.

Why are they here?.. - Fixer spoke out loud, in part to relieve some tension and in part to finally hear something. It had been all too quiet in the warped precinct.

The echo sounded off the walls and gave him further shivers. The unicorn walked away from the office and took a look at the one in front of it, going through the same motions.

The results he got were exactly the same, ponnequin included, the sole difference being that the handle stayed in place despite his best efforts. That was barely frustrating, the proposition of having to be near the unsettling statue not being a particular pleasure. They were creepy enough as they were, but Fixer felt strange looking at them. That feeling made his heartbeat go banging in his ears and did not, in any way, help go through the building. He decided that if he had to, he would backtrack and kick the doors out. For now, there was no necessity of so doing.

“Nothing is wrong. Just plastic statues. I’ll deal with them if I have to. What can they do to me? Just… stand there and look creepy.”

Moving further down the corridor, he felt the last argument repeat itself as his eyes crossed with those on the portrait once again. While much less terrifying than the maze of doors from before, this place was climbing up in terms of persistent wrongness.

Thankfully, he had more offices to work on. Looking over them, he saw that four were left, two on each side - a quick look at both he was standing between showed that they were similarly inhabited by ponnequins. Gulping, he looked at the floor, not willing to cross his stare once again.

There was an ornamented rug on the floor.

He came there all the same, delirious and shaking. They tore him into little pieces, they split his mind into so many fractions, and still he came there. Things battled in his mind, wishing to claim that action as theirs, and created further ruckus, littering his aching head further and further.

The doors were open. If they were not, he went through other doors. His path did not matter. The destination did.

Finally, there it was. So much like his only saving grace, it lay there, broken and soon to be thrown out. He had left so many broken and thrown out. He never acted first. He only cleaned up. But he could fix it. He was a mender. They came to him, one by one, and brought the memory back. He only had to be rekindled in something warm all this time. He was a mender, and he would fix it.

Drained, ill and sweating, he got to his work. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. So little space until the next one. So little time until the next one.

dear?

Fixer gasped and jumped up as the noise came back, the papers flying around once again and raining from the solid stone ceiling. The world had begun to blur and double and triple in his eyes, his hooves fighting to stay connected to the ground.

It had begun to flash, rifting and shifting between places. The rug below him was the stone floor, and then it was the rug again. The dark was the burnt orange light of the endless corridor with the lamps, and then it was the dark again, with the lights dead in their sockets. The distorted sounds and the voice would go mute flash into flash, leaving only his body to be thrown back and forth.

or me how really ever fix it

The unicorn screamed, trying to keep balance and not lose himself as the world turned on itself, the doors banging all around him, opening and closing with enough force to blow the dust all over his struggling body. They knocked and knocked, they shuffled and dragged.

Finally, he tried to pull ahead, and came face to face with himself. The portrait persisted in the flashes, the only thing to do so aside from Fixer himself and the convulsing lamp head. He looked at himself, and fear drove back, leaving place to clarity.

His eyes were pierced, gouged out from the painting. The Shard emerged out of his left socket and threw itself in both directions at once, guiding him to explore the corridors, where he would find his solace.

With a titanic effort, Fixer forced his legs to make step after step and finally ripped himself out of the agonizing corridor. A loud bang, a cacophony of further screams, a struggle of gravity trying to re-establish dominance, and it threw him forward and backwards at the same time, leaving him lying on the stone floor below the portrait, having barely traversed the reality ripples of the world gone wrong.

They did not want to see him anymore. They would visit before, concerned about him after the accident with the last case. They would give him at least some comfort and he would stop feeling alone. They would come to him, and he would have a reason to let go of the sour salty drink that he downed so often that it no longer registered in his mind how much he had drank.

They cared about him. Sometimes, they would even follow him on the streets, standing there in the corners and alleys. Their shapes were so familiar, they gently melted their shapes into his mind, adding perfect finishing notches of metal and gore. He would look at their bloodied, crying faces staring at him from the windows and the doors, begging to save them, to make up for his guilt, and he would feel that his struggle still had a purpose, that somebody still cared.

Eventually, they stopped coming. Instead, he would see himself, staring down from long corridors and passways, lurking in the shadows and looking down at him with disdain as bottle after bottle of the salty drink was downed. His visits did not have the same air, always accompanied by the headache rising up or the lungs starting to rip themselves apart again,

He did not mind. Perhaps, he did not care anymore.

His temples squashed between his hooves, Fixer sat out the few minutes that the burn in his head persisted. At last, he was back to a mere headache and stiff legs. Breathing heavily, he got up.

Oh, how the f—

It got even heavier and intensified when the lamp, having survived the encounter, showed him the corridor he came from. The ponnequins all stood there, six of them, gathered in a line, deep, brutal cuts on the ground beneath them. The office doors were all still very much intact, and the statues looked as plastic as ever, dusty in their colorful outfits that made Fixer want to hurl as much as crawl into a corner and stay there for the rest of the eternal day.

Now standing between a rock and a hard place, he was driven to action, and had begun his way down one of the branching paths, but as he did so, something in the portrait caught his eye. Looking back one more time, unwilling butterflies still in his stomach and the ponnequins’ eyes piercing his back, he saw something even stranger there.

There was only one eye missing now, the other one showing no signs of any tears that he had seen during his warping ordeal. The torn section, however, now took up an alarming part of the side of his face. But stranger yet, he had… changed. His coat took a nearly grey color, his face showed signs of even more severe sickness and undernourishment, while his eyes looked like there was actual smoke in the pupils, drawn so flowy that it almost moved around on the still picture. To top it off, the portrait smirked at him in a way that made his gut go stiff and cold. It was so deeply unreal that he actually looked down to check if he was still the same, and was deeply relieved to see himself remain brown and relatively healthy. As healthy as he could get with the fever that has, thankfully, been somewhat merciful the past half hour.

“Nothing is wrong. Keep moving. Don’t keep thinking.”

So he did, leaving the gazes of the objects that he had sincerely hoped were truly inanimate.

Entering the dark of the corridor to the right of the portrait, he feared that more of the figures would appear, unconsciously tensing up before looking around the corner. That was not to happen - the beam of the lamp only caught old stone and metal as the way made an accurate right angle, leading into a large, dimly lit chamber.

The few windows on the sides let weak beams of ghostly, unnatural light slip through, illuminating a wall of metal bars that cut it in half, rows of chairs facing it and a number of old wooden pedestals. Held up by stern metal columns, several balconies formed an upper row of seats, as if it was some kind of theater before the world had ripped itself to pieces and mashed it all together, dipping the mulch in Fixer’s memories. Those memories, however, spoke different as the unicorn warily walked through the aisles, examining the surroundings with a shaking grip on the light. He winced as the banging and murmuring in his head intensified, burning the back of his head yet again.

“Court room. I’ve been here so many times… It was never in the precinct. I always had to leave the post and take to the other half of town, and then… It was never here. Wasn’t it supposed to—”

He shook his head, letting out a dry cough. Like he got to decide what this place was supposed to do and what it was not. What he got to do was shiver at the uneasiness of the place’s presence and step on, to the pedestals where the jury once sat, the rest of the room proving to be little more than chairs and stone. Perhaps, once he got closer to the bars, he would be able to see what was behind them - not that such a thought brought much excitement.

As he climbed the elevated platform on which the jury’s section stood, he felt his ears perk up. A moment later, he realized what made his body stop - it was a faint gurgling sound coming from somewhere behind the bars. It was so muffled that even having realized that it was there, it was difficult to conclude that it was not just in his head.

Giving the pedestal a couple of weak tugs and kicks to see if it hid anything inside, which it did not, he tried to delay the point at which he would look through the tightly bunched bars and see what was making those sounds. Alas, not even a second inspection of the room, now from a vantage point, held any result.

For a second, he entertained the idea of checking the walls for anything, but the remainders of his memories sternly burned into him the realization that the court room never had any secret passages right at the public’s desposal, and pushed him to action. Sighing and coughing, he turned around and pressed his face to the bars, positioning himself to be able to see inside, the lamp giving as much light as it could.

No… - he whispered, jaw agape.

He stared at the figure behind the bars with tears swelling up in his eyes and a knot forming in his stomach. The conflicting emotions of anger, fear, repulsion and remorse combined in his mind in a way that had become so painfully familiar, but greatly intensified.

He did not flinch as the structure shuddered and the hidden lights all over the ceiling shot back to life, blandly illuminating the surroundings. Neither did he flinch as he caught sight of the ponnequins having gathered in the passway that lead him to the court room. He had no time for fear of the unsettling and the unknown now.

Beyond the bars, a Victim was chained in place. She could not move, the strict bondage keeping her standing static, overlapping with the metal implements in her skin. It was her, trying to mumble out the one word she could muster, that alerted him then. Now, only the weak movements of her chest and head gave away that she was yet alive - however much of that applied to her kind - her voice drowned in the thumping of blood in his ears. But she would not be alive for long.

It was an electric stand.

“She will be broken because of you so what. Oh, dear, sweet and merciful, they will all be broken because of you.”

His muscles jumped back into action, leaving him little time or need to pay his own scalding, conflicting thought any attention. He only rushed back and forth along the strong metal bars, hoping that at least somewhere would be a weak spot, so that he could get to the poor thing before it would inevitably be fried with arcane electricity. In his haste, he concluded that it was foolish to believe that the power would be off, that nothing would happen. He had not been in the world gone wrong long enough to understand what it was - but long enough to understand what it wanted.

It wanted nothing but pain and suffering. Frame Fixer would not allow that.

Kicking and butting, he was trying to break through the barrier, but all was for naught, the metal too strong for him to break through, especially in his condition. That thought, however, did not register in Fixer’s mind as he persevered, an anger rising up and clouding the fear and desperation that inhabited his mind before. At last, it had become so pure that he lit up his horn and stabbed the bars with the Shard, basking in its distorted, screeching light and not for a second questioning where it came from.

It ripped the metal, seething through the bars and cutting a way through, scorching his mind as he gripped onto it and, in so doing, leading the unicorn’s way through the execution room and to the Victim. Drowning in a sea of stretched sounds and impossible images, he walked a feverish pace towards the bound figure.

“But you will fix her. You will fix her, and you will fix them all. You already have, and you’ll do it again. You can’t let her suffer, can you? You never could. You are better than that. You are an idiot.”

His legs stopped carrying him ahead as he was placed face to face with the weakly squirming Victim. Extatic from the pure, alien emotions the shard gave him, he let the lamp drop on the dusty stones and concentrated all his being on the bloodied piece of radiant glass, studying it with a longing gaze.

She was right in front of him, weak and helpless. It would not be long before her body would be fried with lightning and leave behind a burnt, shredded husk. The mechanism for the device was to his right, the prolonged wooden board spotting a fragmented switch in the upper right corner, the rest of it scratched, smelling of blood and tears.

He only had to pull the switch.

“You are better than all of them.”

But he would not.

Fixer’s dilated eyes stared still at the Shard. It saw him through unimaginable horrors and lead him through reality’s twisted treelines. It was his only ally and his only solace. It talked to him a calming cacophony of rippling screams of silence.

Enchanted, he got himself to lift the Shard up. He would not fail. He would aim for the jugular and fix them all.

“They have to be fixed.”

Dm… thc… tv…

As the sharp Shard was just to be blooded again, a stinging thought emanated from Fixer’s mind. He screamed out and fell to the ground, the precious Shard escaping his grasp. The confusion that thought caused, however, was so great that the loss of it barely registered in his mind.

“Holy fuck, what am I doing?!”

He panted and shook his head, lying on his back and looking right up at the Victim that squirmed in her tight bonds. His eyes were about to pop out of their sockets as his mind concocted horrible thoughts.

Why… Why would I kill you? - he spoke out, as if asking the gagged creature.

The entirety of Fixer’s conscious was screaming and swirling, fighting with itself for control, one half wanting the Shard back and nothing more but to follow its instructions so that the gleaming thoughtlessness may return, and the other repulsed and horrified by all that it made him think and do.

How could he kill an innocent? She did nothing. He remembered so little, but he knew that she did nothing. Worse yet, it was him, him who made her this way and him whom she owes being in the execution chamber.

Head spinning out of control, he looked up at her, and realized that this Victim was one he had seen before - the one from the forest, the one that cornered him in the warped tunnel that could never have been, and nearly cost him his life. But was she to blame? In her state, could she even be responsible for her actions? And what wretched being would “care” so much about him to put her in there?

Dm… thc… tv…

Tears swelled in his eyes yet again, the pulsing pain in his head intensifying further. He realized that if any more time would be spent in this shocked state, a life would be on his conscience. The distorted, rippled voice in his consciousness screamed at him that no matter where he was and what he remembered, that would never be acceptable. He would shatter and break into shards if that were to happen. Frame Fixer would never be mended.

“You have been given the power to break and the power to fix. It took you a great toll to realize it. Why warp everything further? Why sit in denial?”

He would not sit.

He rose up, nearly blacking out in so doing, and punched the switch upwards, so as to release the Victim. A dreadful half second of anxiety, where he wondered if his tiny fragment of a memory which said that this was where the switch was to go could have been wrong, had passed. To his immense relief, he heard the sound of metal clunking and leather unfolding, followed by a raspy, gurgling breath and weak attempts at steps on the floor.

It mattered much less to him now that the next thing she would do was probably going to be kill him. He had done the right thing, whether she understood it or not. In any case, he never had the chance to find out.

“You will fix them. There is not going to be a choice. Not then.”

The universe roared again.

He was thrown off balance, falling back on the floor and away from the similarly stumbling Victim. The incomprehensible screeching noise returned, and the flashes ripped reality in two once again, but this time he was not the center - he was only caught on the periphery. Blown away and into the solid wall, he watched the darkness blink and ripple in the screaming flashes, uncovering a passage in the corner where there was naught but stone. It stuttered and vanished, leaving a new corridor in its own place. The corridor pulsed with color, manifesting into being, and then solidified, sending out one last flashing ripple.

Fixer’s entire being reeled and retched at the sheer thought of the sounds and sights around him, but very deep inside, he was calm. For once, he was adamantly sure that he had done the right thing.

quite a you how the mirror so touched

Now the unicorn would just need to muster what little remained of his courage and determination to walk into the passage and face the six plastic statues that stared at him from the dark. Behind them was a brightly lit, beautifully decorated room.

He knew that room.

- Oh, dear goodness… why would you be here at this hour?

- I needed to fix it.

One.

- But is this mirror really important enough for you to take a leave from the hospital? And that is not even considering the dreadful weather outside!

- I needed to do what was right. It would be broken otherwise. I would have been responsible.

Two.

- My dear, you really do need to rethink your priorities. Look at yourself, you are so… pale. How did they— ah, what sort of host am I. Believe me, I am so touched that you took the time to come and fix the mirror for me, but, ohhh, how do I… Can I get you anything?

Three.

- No.

Four.

- Oh… In that case, would you mind if I asked you a question?

Five.

- No.

- How do you do that?

- What?

- The mirror… with all due respect to your resilience, you look awful, my dear. But it is put together with such precision… I have never seen anything like it. It was a pile of shards last time I saw it, but now, my word, I can barely see a crack. If not for the piece up in there, I would never have thought it was broken. You are quite the… mirror mender, Mr. Fixer. Mr. Fixer? Um… Frame Fixer, are you—

Six.

He was running out of time. So little time until the next pillar of all that was wrong with the world. So little space to make his move. The last Shard levitated in front of him with nothing suspended in it, covered in blood and echoing the sounds she made. They calmed him, settling the drive further in and the little screaming patch of doubt deeper out. But two of the words burned in the back of his head, and that burn strained the Shard so much that it had to cut into his chest in order to calm him.

He did not mind. The sounds stopped. He would fix them all.

He had to hurry.

His spinning head was still functioning enough to understand that if he was to stay in the same room as the poor creature he had released, he would not be alive for much longer. As innocent as she ultimately was, she still acted in self-defense, shambling towards him and muttering the one word she knew.

He did not blame her. If anything, she hastened his resolve and sent him through the hallway of ponnequins faster than he otherwise would have decided to. Fixer stepped ahead, shaking here and there, and tried to keep the ray of light stable.

“There is nothing for you in here. There is nothing for you anywhere, unless you fix it.”

Wincing out of the sheer wrongness of the act, he slipped through the narrow path the statues left for him. They stood still, arranged in two perfect lines, as if they were royal guards on the way to the throne room. Fixer, however, felt like anyone but a royal guest.

The corridor stretched for much longer than he originally estimated. It was not unlikely that it simply prolonged itself as he went on - that would have been perfectly in tune with the twisted world. Taking a look behind, he found his suspicion confirmed, the execution chamber now much further away than it should have been. The ponnequins did not stay static, either - they followed him, keeping some distance, but staring in his back all the same.

Eventually, it had become impossible to take their empty plastic eye sockets drilling his back, and Fixer took to running. Panting and aching, he felt himself get closer and closer to the light of the flashing room, distracting himself with the estimations of the warped precinct’s geometry - if he was correct, that was the room he would have gone to if he went left back there at the portrait. That somewhat simplified things - provided the world would decide to make sense all of a sudden. Having felt his eyes shut at the closeness of the white light, Fixer left a mental note that the length of the corridor did, in fact, fit with the structure.

A vain attempt at distracting himself from what he heard, and then saw.

rim mor rormir mirrrr

In the center of the painfully white, neat hall stood a big mirror, elevated on a platform with steps coming in from four sides. All around it were flowers, sophisticated furniture, clothes, sections of stained glass leaning against the walls and nearly everything else that could classify as colorful.

It was all so putrid. It was wrong.

due resilience how would you mind

The Error that stood in front of it compared well. It was also wrong. It was all that was wrong with the world.

You…

Fixer felt his teeth grind, a slow burn in the back of his head flowing in memories of insurmountable hatred and anger.

All that was wrong with the world stood in front of him, completely static, safe for the shattering fragments of its equine-like shape sometimes twisting and twirling in the unnatural bluish light it emanated. It covered the mirror, which displayed a wretched image of colorful designs and other unspeakable things. Nearly falling over in anger, Fixer saw how the ponnequins have disappeared from behind him, leaving the exit from the bright chamber free, no other doors connecting it with the rest of the building.

He would not leave.

“You saw the wretched scum spit on the image of the perfect world. Their sheer existence was intolerable. You knew what to do. You know what to do.”

It no longer spat out chewed up fragments of sounds and words, only letting slip faint echoes of moans and breaths. The Shard felt natural in his grip, washing over with a wave of calm, which only sharpened the seething rage.

He walked towards the Error, the room shuddering as the panels around him had begun to shake. The ponnequins stood there, their gazes stuck, incapable of penetrating the painfully pastel-colored wood. For one moment, he saw one of them, only barely peeking out from behind the furthest panel, its legs encased in a placid grey aura, the rest of its body shaking in place and trying to move like it did before. The Shard assured him that nothing was wrong. Even as the Error jumbled something out again, having caught sight of him through the ponnequin, nothing was wrong.

Mister Fixher WHAT are YOU DOING

Nothing but the Error itself.

He stabbed the shard deep into what all of his being felt was the most awful, most wretched thing in the Universe, and put every thought towards cleansing it from existence. It was them who made the world go wrong. He would fix them.

Even as he felt the floor under him crumble and send him flying down the dark, damp chasm, shardless and with only the lamp head attracting to the shining of the horn, he knew he would.

Parallel Trial

“Day 6

This is out of control. I am out of control. I don’t know what the flying fuck is going on, but I know it’s something unbelieveably wrong. This is all going somewhere real bad. I have to write fast. Will probably have to do a double-take, try again when I’m better. Here’s the gist. I really hope this ends up being useless, but here it is:

I am not pretending anymore. I am actually losing my memory. I keep having to ask the nurses what day it is. As far as I know, I came here with a fever, tried to settle in with the little yellow shit and then got packed to the hospital, simulating amnesia symptoms so that it would be pointless to ask why I was sent here. I think I remember that, the other entires point to that. Now I am actually starting to forget. I can barely remember anything… anything I would ever want to remember.

But it’s worse. I remember, sometimes. The things I remember… I don’t want to write about them. If I’ve forgotten it all and am reading this, then I will only do myself better if I don’t describe them here. They are impossible. There is no way in hell that any of them could have happened. I am afraid to even think of what I see in there.

I fear greatly for my life. I fear that what I saw in the forest. I fear for the others.”

The unpleasant feeling of a disproportionate cold brought him back to his senses - lying awkwardly on something soft, miraculously intact after the fall. He had lost himself shortly before the impact, departing into whatever depths his mind used for dreams. There was nothing he remembered having seen in them - perhaps, for the better.

Flinching and flexing his muscules, with pain being the primary feedback, Fixer coughed up something wet and slimy and got his leg to lift up from where it dropped off, the cold that engulfed it being far too unpleasant.

Still dreamy and dizzy, the unicorn opened his eyes, which let through a stream of tears, the fever taking its toll yet again, and showed him what it was that he laid upon. It was a sofa - an old, torn up sofa, well fit for the scrap heap, even more so after him dropping on top of it. A familiar burning sense of recall in the back of his head erupted yet again at the sight of it. Shaking from the pain, Fixer got himself to turn over and face the ceiling, glad to see that the lamp was still there, lying on a coffee table not far from him and illuminating the otherwise murky room. It could not possibly have been intact after such a fall, and yet it was, and that was good.

To compensate, of all the things he could see in there, it was the only one that gladdened him.

“That… is a long way down.”

The ceiling above had a huge gaping hole in it, positioned right over the sofa. It went on for a great distance, but seemed to end somewhere with weak, dim lights - lights that he recognized still. His mouth involuntarily twisted into a scowl, the horrific memories of the thing that he had stricken down coming back. So did the remainders of the insanity he had faced - they took their time to come back, his mind still not fully awake.

Not anymore.

“It was.”

Moving to get himself into more of a sitting position and hopefully dispose of the nausea that had built itself up while he was lying, Fixer looked at the other thing that was highly unnerving - this time directly under him, all over the floor and on his leg, which dropped down into it while he was sleeping.

The whole floor was overflown with some liquid. It was rather clear and seethrough, one could almost take it for water. However, the unicorn retained his sense of smell even through the sickness. It was not water. He sniffed the air, which resulted in a violent cough - more from the roughness of the inhale than the liquid.

“It’s so salty. Like the sea, just worse… Why would it be here all over the place? The hell is this?..”

Having looked around, Fixer saw that what little of the chamber was visible held various pieces of furniture, like if it was a living room at some point. He could scarcely make out the walls and the corridor that went ahead from the feet of the couch. However, it was silly to assume that it. as a whole, really used to be something before. His bet was on another amalgamation of bits and pieces. He set to find out, taking the lamp in his telekinetic grip and giving it a swirl around, using the advantage he had from the sofa and seeing if there was anything dangerous or curious.

As it turned out, the bet he had made could hardly have been more correct.

He was as grateful for the improvements as a living being could be, but the meek inside him made his body retch and boil - worse yet when it erupted outside. He laid on the dirty, blood and vomit-stained floor and took in the smells of pain and misery. They were different to him now - they were like they should have been, they were done right, he knew that. They hurt.

So did the colors. He would look in the window before, and think the dark, neon-lit streets a touch too dreary for a place that was otherwise so colorful. Now, he saw colors he could not describe in the simplest shade of grey, and felt burning hatred at anything that reminded him of the worthless rest - pink, blue, white, purple, yellow, orange, green, red, teal... They wretched before his eyes even when he closed them. He saw the silhouette in the moon, so enigmatic and threatening before, and spat black blood at it, having realized its true colors.

For hours, he would lie down on the floor, try not to open his eyes, and breathe through his mouth. Eventually, he would become accustomed to his superiority. But first, he would have to get used to how his bottled solace had turned its salty taste into that of tears.

He drank it anyway. By that point, he was used to the taste of his own tears.

They were salty as well.

The couch really was placed fortunately. Firstly, it softened the impact of his fall, even though logic said that he should have been blown into pieces no matter what.

Secondly, if not for it, he would probably have crawled all the way to the back wall and into the dark where things may have been waiting. Instead of that, he just pushed himself as close to the couch as he could without breaking through it, his head running like a carousel at the sight of what the room really looked like.

“...”

It was everything thrown into one. The shape and geometry were exactly that of the corridor he found himself in when the Error threw him to the precinct - utterly disregarding the fact that it was far above, still out there - but the textures of the walls wailed and wept at their own impossibility. They consisted of objects, things, words, thoughts, like if something went bang in his senses and made him see them as everything else all at once. Reflecting and bending in the salty water, they broke all perception of how things should be.

Fortunately, Fixer’s perceptions have already been far from intact for it to be that much of an issue.

“Just get out of here. Get out of this dump. You have to move out, it will let you out and lead you where you need to go. Move.”

He slipped from the couch and onto the flooded floor, mercifully dull and grey under the layer of liquid, the cold conflicting with his fever-heated body. The uncomfortable feeling woke him further up, enough to force a trot on through the old corridor with new skin. The flashlight shook in his grip, almost unwilling to light up the still images plastered there where steel and concrete used to be. By right, Fixer should have felt them and checked if they had the same qualities, but that sheer thought made his head come close to flying off. He just tried to make one step after another, dripping the vest in sweat.

“Getting closer… somehow. Nothing is wrong. Remember, nothing is wrong.”

There was plenty of room for argument with himself on that point. He aimed the ray at the sides of the corridor, looking at the office doors that now had tables, clouds and lights plastered all over them. They were painful to look at. For something so horribly wrong, they were terrifyingly static, not at all reminiscent of the Errors or other abominations of the new world. Fixer almost wanted them to start shifting, blurring, screaming, if only to show their wrongness to the sheer concept of normalcy, and rid him of the terrible thought that this was what passed for normal. But static they stood, digging into his eyes with every blink.

As if that was not bad enough, that lack of motion meant one more thing.

The faint distorted sounds at the edge of Fixer’s hearing were not coming from them.

Letting out a wet cough and shaking off a wave of nauseating headache, the unicorn straightened up and quit breathing for a few seconds, attempting to find the source of the noise. Wearily side-stepping, he got himself closer to it, as it did not seem to be so far - it came from behind the doors. He wanted to think that it was just the one door of the six, but the distribution of the sound told him that it had multiple issue points. Whatever was behind them had connected the offices into a singular space. Both lines of them.

Making a concentrated effort not to touch the kaleidoscopic texture of the door, Fixer leaned in to try to listen. He had his suspicions.

who where di d who did you come

The unicorn slumped his head, giving out a ragged sigh. The longer he spent in that place, the more he wished he would just stop being correct.

“It isn’t coming. It would have come if it knew. Either it doesn’t feel me, or something is restraining it. I don’t suppose I should complain. Get going.”

Seeing how little else was left of the jumbled corridor, he let the lamp shine on ahead, at the spot that he wanted to see the least. There, where his portrait used to hang in the precinct.

Oh, fucking hell.

His consciousness let out a high-pitched crying noise at the sight of what had become of the picture. It was extremely discomforting before, but in this state it was plain terrifying. Some fragments of his thoughts proposed the idea that whatever turned the walls into the mishmashed background that they were now had tampered with the portrait the same way, but he clearly saw how that was not the case. The canvas had persevered, and so did the plain wooden frame. What changed was the content of it.

Fixer had to look away, his head pounding and his legs shaking. Half of the feelings he felt he could not describe, and the other half he did not want to.

A mangled, reality-defying shape, its geometry sickening and its structure intimidating, the new image still had a discernible form of a… being. It had a face - a concept of a face, at least - represented by two holes and a gaping maw in the middle. They emanated a ghostly grey light, at least the way the picture was drawn. These holes screamed wildly in a broken lines, so botched and wrong that it was not clear whether that creature was in anger, pain, or fear. It splattered over the painting with its improbable shape, defying the world with its sole existence. It could not have been drawn by a sane living being. It would have crumbled their mind and plunged them into a dark descent, an avatar of cruelty, insanity and terror. An Aberration.

It wore Fixer’s vest.

- Get out.

- But…

- For fuck’s sake, get out.

- W-what did I do wr-

- I said get out. I’m sick already and you still manage to sicken me. Don’t you ever fucking come back.

He nearly tore his throat, coughing out something wet, cold and salty.

- M… Mister…

- Find someone else to talk down to.

The unicorn panted heavily, trying to keep balance as his head swung back and forth. Almost spasming, he splashed some of the liquid beneath onto himself when he stomped a hoof. The cool brought him back to a semblance of his senses.

“That shouldn’t deter you. Keep moving.”

Inhaling and exhaling the rough salty air, Fixer looked where the corridors branched out, and was less than surprised to find another oddity. It was a welcome one at that point - it simply looked weird and did not horrify him beyond mortal capacity of understanding. The water defied laws of physics and magic, cutting itself off from the passway on the right, standing still as if having met a wall and not rippling in place as it would have if it was a magic shield.

At first, Fixer had considered it an invitation to go down that path again and into what had become of the court room and the execution chamber, but as he limped towards it, an uneasiness grew in his stomach. Having almost breached the point where the water spread no more, he had realized that something was very, very wrong about it - the floor was skinned with the foul vomitus as the walls, unlike what was under Fixer’s hooves in the water.

Unsure and confused, he felt himself up, looking for something he may have missed what he could test it out with, to throw to the mismatched floor beyond the abnormal salty river. There was nothing - only the notebook, which he had forgotten to check after having woken up. It was far too important to lose.

Shivering from the combined hot of the fever, cold of the water and gaze of the picture, Fixer decided to give it a check - just a quick glance, as further inspection would be better fit for a less uncomfortable situation. Trying page after page, the bulk still glued together by blood, he could not help but look at the floor beyond the waterline again and again, the lamp levitating still, his magic barely suspending both it and the book at the same time. The same amalgamation of pictures and concepts. He could well have been the only thing left intact by whatever ruled over this layer.

Finally, having gone through the old pages, he got himself to a new one. Rather conveniently, the very first words read:

“Da STAY IN THE WATER”

That was all the proof and excuse he needed not to step onto the reshaped floor, the following passages relatively untouched by the mysterious additions. He would check the rest later, as for the moment, the other corridor beckoned. Moreover, the remainder of the contents repulsed him, the sheer thought of them did. The more he looked at the wretched textures around, the more preferable was the nagging cold of the water, which held underneath it a normal stone floor.

The fact that he would get to step on something remotely normal was the one good thing about where he was headed - by all logic, the path he had taken would lead him into an even more twisted chamber that he fell from. The Error that had inhabited it was gone, as he was almost sure, but the thought of what it could have become of it was far from pleasant.

He walked on, splashing water with each step and occasionally startling himself, driving his mind to think that there was someone else walking behind him. It was as likely as it was not, for the strain on Fixer’s sanity had risen significantly the past couple of hours.

Or was it days?

As he tried to inhale and exhale to the best of his ability, the unicorn flashed the light at the path ahead, the corridor stretching out for a while, looking rather featureless. By his assumption, it would have to take an angle before leading him into the chamber, and it did not seem like the ray would hit anything if pointed straight ahead no matter how long he walked. Fixer was reminded of how the other corridors stretched - always when that dark blue Error was concerned. He shuddered at the thought of it not being dead. If his shard was not sufficient, then nothing was and his task was doomed.

“Pull it together. Nothing is wrong. You will get through it. You do not get a choice. You’re close.”

He faltered slightly from the headache, almost stumbling into a wall, just barely propping himself up at the last moment. That, however, caused him to do something he did not want to do. The lamp shone over the walls.

Fixer stared at them, eyes wide agape. He had assumed that the walls would be just as painful to look at as they were before, and so did not bother to light them up much. He was correct on that assumption, yet again, but as he found out, that was not the worst thing about the walls of that particular corridor.

hmmMMmmm

At the same time, not even that worst thing was worse than what splashed behind him.

It was seething. He came there expecting foulness, but this was starting to go beyond his worst expectations. His skin itched with hatred at the sheer thought of it.

Inside, he knew that it was for the better. This was righteous hatred, and in a time of doubt he would summon it to strengthen his resolve. It was at its top now, much unlike his physical capability. He laid in the bed, his lungs spawning ichor to cough out, and only wished he could start now, with the one that just left.

Almost all of them had visited him by that point. He saw utter idiocy, danger, annoyance and obliviousness, but this he could barely describe even with use of his extensive vocabulary of expletives. This one was most assuredly wrong. Evil, if anything. She outright mocked his entire existence.

She knew full well of her state in the world. It revolved around her. It was all to her needs, and she reveled in it, and ridiculed those who, to her, blended into the background of her rancid life. She spoke down to them, pretending that they were worthy of her attention, but then imminently reminding them of how worthless they really were, both to the awful world around and to her. The rest had at least a sliver of propriety or ignorance covering them up.

This one was foul and loved it. The sheer fact that she existed made him choke on the bloody liquid inside, almost drowning him yet again. Spasming in agony, he recalled how she touched him to pretend to help with his coughing fit that happened during her visit. The one pleasant thing about that was that he had managed to spit some of the ichor on her.

It was shameful. Shameful that something like this got to persist. And so satisfying that someone from what they thought was just the background to their lustrous lives, would end it.

How-

Whatever his question was, it was devoid of reason. Behind him was a non-corporeal form of all too familiar dispersed proportions - an Error. Their existence itself could be summarized as defying all that was right. It was only proper for it to do something like this.

mmmmmMMMM

The cold salty water splashed all over the place and covered his bloodstained clothes as he galloped as far down the pathway as he could. The loud screeching sound that must have been his sanity losing yet another screw mercifully blocked out the jumbled vocalizations of the Error. What he could hear of them was mortifying - it was a horrid mix of laughter, singing and what must have been death screams, all taken together, blended and then distorted to the point where his ears could only barely take these sounds in.

The splashes in the water sped him up, now true in their telling of something being behind. It was unlikely, though, that that something could splash water. It was only barely real. At the same time, it was more real than anything else.

“Do they lure.”

Finally, he had reached the point where the way took a turn, and nearly smashed himself against the putrid wall, which almost seemed less frightening now, in comparison to the Error behind.

“They want you to fall. Part of the background.”

hhhmmmmmmmrrrgrlglhhlglhhhhh

As he twisted himself into the turn, he saw the room ahead, much closer than he would have expected. He ran in, closing his eyes if only to save himself from the gaze of reality bent and the pictures on the walls.

They were what startled him seconds before the Error appeared and reminded him what being startled really meant. The entire corridor was covered in pictures of him, chaotically placed on the walls, swinging and twisting as the horrid creature splashed past them. They were copies of the portrait from the main hall of the precinct, some of them copies of the one he saw first, some of the sickened one, and some of the thing he saw just before. All of them were mutilated in some way, carved, burnt and blooded. Some he could not recognize, them showing a picture he had clearly not seen before, but he had no time to take note of it. The one thing he did notice before reality had decided to deal away with him again was what went above the pictures.

The rows were topped with police tape yet again. It said “Hall of Fame”.

hhhgrhhhhh will grrlllllmmmmhyou

He saw the same words in front of him, too.

“You know what to do. No fear.”

It was not the same room.

Unlike the remainder of the defiled precinct, it did not take the shape of a previously existing chamber. This one was new. Bigger, more expansive, it looked like a mad vision of a party. Things that he could only assume were balloons, confections, seats and gift boxes littered the room, tainted by the same foul infection that the walls and the ceilings suffered from. The only exception was a red carpet that stretched to where a door was, its tail end not far from the end of the flooded corridor. The water in it once again revolted and stood up on contact with the abominable mix of images that covered the previously wooden floor.

He had no other choice. He would have to make the jump.

hhhggg be ggrhm

With what little strength remained in him, he lunged himself off the floor and into the air, the entirety of his body and mind aching in flight. The next second, he heard the splashing stop, but not the dreadful noises, and realized that had he waited a moment more, he would have been consumed.

The second after that he realized that he had plummeted right onto the carped nose-down - if only through the sudden pain in his muzzle, and most everywhere else for that matter. Afraid to open his eyes, he carefully felt the space around him up, fearing that he may have touched a part of the floor. Fortunately, however, all he could feel with which parts of him retained feeling was the now wet red carpet that gave off a strong smell of dust and something sickeningly sweet.

Soon enough, having regained his breath, Fixer opened his eyes and confirmed to himself that he was, in fact, lucky enough to land exactly in the middle. The adrenaline remaining from the jump allowed him not to fall right back down as he painfully sat up.

mmmhmmmmmmmmmhm

Above him hung a banner. It was like one of those that would be installed at a party, with something eye-gougingly sweet written on them, like “Happy Birthday” or “A Joyous Retirement”.

This one was different. He saw the words even before making the jump, even before he had realized that they were written with something black, ichorous and unnatural.

“HALL OF FAME”

A nauseating headache washed over him once again, blurring his sight. He was so confused that there was little to no room for fear. Fixer just sat on his safe island and waited until the pulsing would stop, listening to the Error grumble and squeak. This one time the fever did him good, as sitting in the middle of a wretched, tainted chamber with balloons that had pictures of skies, eyes and guts on them and having a being that defied existence shift and blink barely a few meters in front of you was a thing better done when you are barely half-conscious.

mmhhhhhhhhghhh mmmmy

Oh, fuck you. Just… fuck you, - Fixer slurred, alleviating the pressure on his head and letting out at least some of the dread and animosity he felt towards the Error.

It did not seem to be able to reach him, so taunting was as good as anything.

“Time is being wasted.”

He opened his eyes again, taking a rare opportunity to look at his enemy from a safe place. Half a second of inspection was enough to send his head on a carousel ride once again, but it was also sufficent for him to see something strange in that Error. Admittedly, not much could possibly be strange about a thing that barely even existed, but what he saw was clearly an oddity.

The blistering pinkish abomination had a shape much like the rest, remotely resembling an equine and seemingly trying to imitate some typical movements in a sporadic, twitching manner, fading in and out of existence piece by piece, images, colors and sounds jumbling up in each and every move. That shape, however, was full of holes, as if something had managed to wound the Error - furthermore, these holes were consistent in placement and shape. They defined its silhouette and made it less terrifying to look at, though it was still frightening enough to make more than half a moment of eye contact a test for one’s sanity.

mmmmmmmmm

Whoever did that, - Fixer coughed, spraying blood and saliva over himself - should get a freaking medal.

He wondered why this one was so limited. It could not leave the water - unlike the other one, which seemed to be locked out by it - and neither could it sound as awful as the rest. The other Errors’ screeches and noises sounded like voices that lingered at the edge of his mind, almost making them seem like they tried to talk to him, an errant word or two conjuring themselves up in his mind as he heard them. This one just muttered, gurgled and screamed, with barely a few hints of what the others did.

Fuck it, - the unicorn shook his head, fighting fire with fire and causing a different kind of headache to replace the one he was having, - not my problem.

He grabbed the lamp, once again lucky not to have lost it. With a slight knock, it let out a ray of light, allowing him to look over the room - it may not have been the darkest place, a few beams peeking through what looked like closed windows above, but certainly not good enough for him in his condition.

mmm ghhhhhhh ghhhrlll

First of all, his thoughts went to the door that he saw on his way in - the carpet looked like it lead right to it. It did, in fact - having gotten up, Fixer made his shaky way down the trashy red fabric, distancing himself from the Error and the ominous banner.

Dammit, - he spat, having taken a closer look - just my luck.

The door was, of course, textured with the same thing that took over everything in the lower precinct. Or however this place was to be called.

“You have a job to do.”

Flashing the ray through the rest of the “Hall of Fame”, he searched for anything else that could help. Upon further inspection, it appeared to have been something like a shop, before the world had gone wrong.

There was what looked like a counter, a couple of trays, shelves and potted plants. A couple of tables stretched left and right of the door, covered so deeply by the taint that they were barely noticeable, much like several big windows - their placement suggested that it was probably a cafe or restaurant, to be fully precise. Finally, there was a staircase leading up, to where the staff likely used to live.

Of course, all of that was completely absorbed by the sickening amalgamation of hurl-inducing colors and images, safe for the carpet and the banner. That included the balloons, boxes and other party implements that littered the chamber for no immediately obvious reason, making the place feel even wronger than it already was.

After Fixer had paced back and forth along his red line of safety, making his stomach swell harder and harder with every glance at the furniture, let alone the still muttering Error in the corridor, he gave himself a good punch to the head. He had managed to forget about the notebook.

Once it had flown out of his pocket and opened at the page he last recalled reading, his mind thought that it was a good time to get ahead of things.

It was utterly ludicrous. His patience was wearing very, very thin. Again, and again, and again, and again. He pushed and squeezed with all his strength, of which the adrenaline and determination had given him a lot more of. A lot, but seemingly not enough.

She would not die.

He stabbed and stabbed, puncturing her abdomen for times beyond counting, all the while choking her with his hooves, all that while her head was submerged into the water-filled sink.

She still would not die.

Gurgling and mumbling, she kept sending bubbles topside. The water in the sink was red from the blood that must have come out of her nose, but that seemed to barely matter as her heart kept beating and her hooves desperately pushed against his chest, covering it in even more blood.

The hatred in him burned the brightest he ever recalled. It clouded everything. The hatred for the world around him, for the injustice, for these insolent shits, for the fact that they got to live perfectly and have everything revolve around them and them only. And now, when he was finally on top of everything, when he had broken out of the bland background and started to build something better, she would not fucking die.

Some two minutes in, he realized that it would not do. If he let himself get consumed by hatred, it would not work. He needed to stay calm. It was necessary. The doubt that lurked inside was dangerous, but he could control it. The hatred was different. The line between righteousness and blinding rage was thin.

He needed to be calm.

He pulled her head out of the reddened water, immediately meeting a barrage of painful coughs and weak sobs. The bulging tumor of hair dropped down into a straight wet fall. She was hurt, she was bleeding. That meant she could die.

He looked in her face, now so blue and pale, covered in blood and bruises. In his moment of clarity, he got himself to remember her the way she was right then - weak, worthless, tortured and barely mumbling a word, stab wounds all over her chest, covering pink over with red. She was seconds from death, water in her lungs, and the one to end her would be the one she ridiculed while he was in his sickbed.

He stared her down, levitating the edge to her throat. This completed the mental image.

Fixer spat out and closed his eyes, shielding them from the warm, sickening spray. He had erased each and every putrid word she ever said, and he was better for it. Every single word.

Or so he thought.

Fixer’s head tore itself apart, the notebook flying off somewhere. He yelled out in pain. His eyes opened by force as a wail of unbelieveable volume pierced through the hall, sending furniture flying off its places and making him lose his balance.

What…

WILL YOUBE

The unicorn barely hung onto the carpet as the scream impacted him. It threw him off to the wall, dangerously close to the infection. There was barely a second to contemplate the consequences of being even that close, as the next moment the Error wailed again, this time even louder and much longer.

To his horror, he heard the words even through the layers of screams, gurgles and sobs.

MY FRIEND?

As his eyes widened at the sound of those botched up, distorted words, he once again did not have time to take it in - the Error, still standing in the corridor, had begun to move. It twitched and blinked in and out of existence, much like it normally did, but with much more rhythm in its movements. It kept screaming all the while, and very soon its movements and emanations had had effect - the “Hall of Fame” had begun to get reeled in.

Fixer felt himself move against his will, being pulled into the Error. Clinging to the still intact carpet, he watched the banner get blown off and fly right into the pink monstrocity, the words on it taunting him one last time - it vapored away tracelessly as soon as all of it had made its way into the pink.

There were seconds left to live. Frantically, the unicorn scanned all he could with his eyes, the lamp gone from him as well. Panicking, he turned around on the carpet, if only not to have to look at it while it devoured him, but as he did so, a stinging pain came from his chest.

He looked inside his pocket and, for a moment, was the most relieved creature in the remaining universe.

Pink. More pink. A cake. A balloon. A pile of confetti. A peaceful rocky countryside. Faces. These Fixer did not recognize at all. All of them stretched in disgusting grins. More faces. More pink.

The next moment, he threw the shard right into the Error, aiming to kill, and fueling his throw with all the adrenaline that the hatred and fear gave him.

GRRRHLLLL will you HHHMMMMMGHHH be ghhrhhhh fr fr frie ghhhmmmm YOU

What would only be fit to be called an explosion sent him flying off, his momentary pride and courage allowing him a second of non-realization while he slumped against the wall, his bones aching once again.

Then he realized that his body just came in contact with the taint and jumped right up, panting heavily.

The day of arduous work pulled all strength out of him. The sharp presence in his veins moved lower and lower, descending from the head where it all started. He had to be prepared. This was just a show of what was to come. His eyes bled, his nose bled, his mouth bled.

The walls bled.

He scraped over each inch of the walls. It happened last day, when he awoke on the couch and stared into a beautiful night sky, sprung unfinished over his head, painted on the ceiling. The fleshy residue covered most of the walls and left tumor-like remnants in the corners. That had to be cleaned.

He pulled the slimed photocards out of the pulsating matter and vomited all over the floor.

He was going to have a guest soon.

To his surprise, he was still intact and alive. To his further surprise, he saw none of the taint, the chamber absolutely pristine and clear - in comparison to what it used to be, that is. A normal abandoned cafe in the middle of a world gone wrong, with furniture lying out of place and not a sign of balloons or gift boxes.

That surprise was momentary, however, as with nary a minute of rest he crossed eyes with one of the windows. It was perfectly clear just as well.

The grey mess behind it had begun to wail.

Oh, you have-

There was never an easy way out.

Throwing away all and any thoughts aside from the one that urged him to run, no matter how tired and weary he may be, he rammed himself into the door, but coughed out in frustration as it would not budge.

wwhhh whaa what did you what you did what dee you DO

With little more than instinct guiding him, he rushed up the stairs and to the murky staff section with a few doors and rooms. He tried to look for the shard, but it was nowhere to be found, not even a glimmer at the corridor. Nothing else came to his mind, nothing but trying to run. He rammed door after door, scraping his horn on them, but none gave way. Soon enough he had realized that there was no space remaining. Two doors left, and a wall.

you I yyou tore to shreds what

If neither worked, then all his struggle would have been for naught. He saw what happened to the banner - and that was an Error that seemed to have been somehow wounded.

This one was rather operational.

Panting and barely holding himself upwards, Fixer tried a door. Nothing.

look out

The other door.

De- tec- tive!

Bingo.

Fuck me.

He barely had time to get surprised as the spikes on the Victim’s head pierced through his skull. Fixer fell to the ground and grew around himself a pool of blood.

“You have to carry on.”

Author's Note

theendisnevertheend

Acquired Momentum

Detective.

Fixer had to make a conscious effort to close his mouth and stop his eyes from popping out of their sockets. He was starting to hit the limit.

De- tec- tive.

He was surrounded by crudely disfigured shapes that recalled in his mind glimpses of horrid scenes. For all this time, they meandered the new material plane, the only other beings of flesh to exist alongside him. Barely stepping and painfully wheezing, they would utter the only word they could, closing the distance and aiming to put him out of his misery - something he could not do himself, for either party. Their tortured muttering of his title seemed like dark, twisted mockery, another spring of insanity in the world gone wrong, but that was until this moment.

Now, he watched them bow to him, the circle of bludgeoned monsters having turned into a circle of reverent unfortunates. Almost a minute was spent with them stretching their bodies to the best of their abilities, so that their horrifying physical forms would give way to sheepish appreciation. He used that time well, as his sanity was beginning to actively leak under the pressure.

De- thec- thive?

Fixer breathed deep, inhaling and exhaling, and rigorously exorcizing any burdening thoughts further into the pulsating maze of his mind. There was no more space left, he could only reorganize. Too much he stuffed in there, never to be considered, lest he find the truth too horrifying to cope with. He trod on in denial, his one means of perseverance, but that has come to an end.

There was no way he could ignore what the Victims were doing.

I… no. No. No, no, no.

De- tec- tive!

He needed time to sort things out. Thankfully, they all seemed to have plenty.

A world gone wrong. A world done right.

So complex, so fragile, so simple, so sturdy, black, white, impossible colors, unimaginable shapes, engines of horror and beings of filth.

It would not leave him even as he woke, wandering the neon-lit streets at night. He stumbled and left traces of vomit behind him. It has been so long since he was last contacted by any of… them. The streets felt abandoned, and so did the suite. Bulging tumors had consumed the building, faintly changing color day by day, assimilating the essence of his world, and only he remained. The district was empty.

That did not matter. That was good. It only let him out at night, trying to cater to his worthless needs, him unable to spend entire days locked in. The flawed schematics for his being made him too reliant on air, nature, food and water. Turning him inside, out and back again, the Orb took care of those issues one by one. Time was of the essence, and so the process had to finish fast.

He understood. He just wanted to see the night sky from time to time. Its colors felt the least wrong in all of the world, the deep dark blue and the radiant white consoling his bleeding, hurting senses. He stared at the Mare in the Moon. She was no longer there.

He knew now that it was pure weakness. Now, when he pulled the photographs from the pulsating flesh, he was full of strive and near devoid of the dangerous empathy. It knew too well now what it lead to, the jugular blood still covering the floor, the couch and the ceiling. No more skies.

If only it could stop it from coming back when it was most dangerous. Unfortunately, there was no time for that precaution. The equine operator and his little amnesia would have to work together.

He fell on his face when the recall recoiled. Not even a cry of pain, only a labored breath came out of his mouth as he found himself swimming in a boiling sea of insanity, involuntarily bowed alongside his new followers.

He saw so much. Too much. Many images blurred still, but those that he did see were horrifying, and fit together so perfectly that it was near impossible to put them together. He was left with a series of disturbing images that told a story, but his pus-filled tumor of a mind cried out in protest and refused to form it. Having laid it to rest, Fixer remained on the floor and realized that his eyes were leaking.

Detective.

The Victim closest to him, the intact one, suddenly broke her silence, having noticed that something happened to him. Unable to retaliate in any way, Fixer only watched as she straightened out and looked at him, her motions like that of a puppet. For a few seconds, the Victim and the detective looked at each other. He wondered what was going to happen now. Not even worried - merely curious.

Detective.

The Victim twitched and performed a series of near-mechanical motions that saw her front hoof extended in his direction.

She was helping him get up.

Closing his still leaking, swollen eyes, he reached for the limb with his, and used it to get back up from the cold floor. For how awkward and painful every motion looked for the Victims, they possessed surprising strength - this one did not flinch a muscle when a grown stallion used her as a crutch. Admittedly, that stallion was undernourished beyond belief and very sick.

The truth of the matter was still the same. The Victims were not hostile.

They just never knew any better.

Detective.

Can you… - Fixer started, only to be interrupted mid-sentence by a rending coughing fit.

The other Victims had begun to get up, the lead one motioning them to do so with a turn of the head that would easily have broken any neck. When his lungs were done with their revolt, he was again surrounded by circles of standing corpses. This time, however, they did not have an atmosphere of aggression and dread around them.

He was so sorry.

Can you understand me?

Detective.

This time, her voice seemed almost remorseful. In a confusing motional response, the vanilla mare shook her head.

You… can’t? - Fixer raised his eyebrows, looking around him at the almost guilty-looking congregation.

De- thec- thive.

The Victim that crawled the ground like a serpent - the one who was hung in the maze - tried to point towards something around his neck, but his awkward, mismatched physique only made him twist without direction. The rest of them hung their heads low, leaving the answer ambiguous.

Even if they could understand, they could not talk back.

I am sorry, - said Fixer, if only to alleviate the guilt off himself as well.

Almost as if to coincide with his admission, the floor had started to shake incessantly, sending the Victims shivering and wheezing more intensely than usual.

The tremors were followed by a recognizable distant roar, one that he had heard before. It had first sounded when the corridors were tearing themselves apart and turning into new ones back at the main precinct hall, just before the first Error was dispatched. His assumption that nothing would stay static for long had been confirmed.

They had to move.

Detective.

To Fixer’s surprise, the lead Victim shared the sentiment. She turned around and pointed a stiff hoof towards the dark hole. He nodded, and made a step forward - a foolish decision in hindsight, for he was in the middle of the Victim crowd, and they had a leader, and who knew how they would react to someone breaking the chain of command. Those worrisome thoughts did not end up coming to reality, however, as with his step, all the rest made a simultaneous one in the same direction. He made another, and yet again a synchronized clop, bang, and screech was the response. The vanilla mare was still in the front, stepping like a puppet with the stiffest joints, but somehow, Fixer was leading the procession into the dark and out of the morgue.

Curiously, he felt stronger for it. Venturing into the tunnel and beyond, he felt little fear and more drive to see them reach something resembling safety. In the noisy hurricane or painful thoughts, something more decent emerged.

That something turned to grief yet again when his still wet eyes adjusted to the dark.

The towering Aberration stood up and wailed at the sky.

The sky wailed back.

The end had begun.

He never understood these. There was an innumerable number of things he could not possibly find a reason for that had become routine, but these seemed to exist simply to defy his mind’s presence.

The portraits. They hung from the outwardly caved walls of the passage, attached to the jaggy surfaces by their sheer desire to rend his confidence asunder. Dozens of his own eyes stared at him in the dark as the absurd marching band took step after step down the unlit hall, its narrow, choiceless intestine leading them to whatever destination awaited. He wanted not to watch, to escape his own gaze, now so punishing, but the grim features kept shoving themselves within eyesight.

Delirious, hateful, piercing, ragged, and horribly smirking - these were present the most, ominously frowning from the wooden frames and near exactly copying his own condition, hatred conceding to guilt and mourning within Fixer himself. Their smirks, which looked painfully unnatural, as if merely caused by spasms, mocked him. These nearly littered the choking corridor at the beginning, covering up the small open sections where the unicorn could swear something was moving, catching up with the procession. As they progressed, the hall was becoming brighter and brighter, signifying that the silent, limping parade was starting to reach its destination.

“Frame Fixer.”

The closer they got, the more of the other portraits there were. There was no longer any regard for placement - they hung from improbable angles, sometimes halfway stuck in the stone, sometimes floating in thin air, perfectly fit for passing through. Some seemed to have mercifully fled - their empty frames littered the floor, creaking sometimes as a Victim’s hoof stomped them. His illness-torn, sweat-covered, and beaten visage pointed its smog-filled eyes at him.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like breathing in sulfur.”

At last, something had begun to clear out near the end of their way - faint shapes in the slightly brighter dark painted a picture of something tall in the middle of a spacious chamber. The lead Victim made a careful stop, her head going through an uncomfortable turn and motioning a hoof forward, uttering the same phrase yet again, but with an eerily reverent tone.

Detective.

Right, I… I see, - he felt the need to at least acknowledge her words to himself.

The procession was coming to a stop, Fixer becoming paranoid near the last steps that the horrible black shape would stare its screaming form at him from one of the last pictures. Fortunately, however, none of these seemed to be present - at the very least, not within his sight. They walked out into a big room, and left the unicorn to breathe in the dusty, strange air that circulated within.

De- thec- thive?

His “flock” separated themselves from his vicinity, but kept nearby - as he watched them shamble and twitch, a resemblance of motion language reemerged within his trampled memory. Holding up a hoof to his temple, Fixer realized that if any of it was applicable, then it told that the Victims themselves were afraid. Their heads shook ever so slightly, and drooped low, ears pinned down - for those who could move any of those parts. They stepped warily, taking time to move each joint, of which there seemed to be less for some than for others.

The Victims did not stay near him to prevent him from fleeing. They were just afraid. He was their comfort.

De- tec- tive.

He saw the broken one from the forest approach him as all of them neared the tall rectangular shape that stood in the middle. Weakly, she tried to lift up her head, weighed down by still vomit-inducing implements and the sheer fact that, upon further inspection, her neck appeared to be twisted. Standing in place and up for observation, she looked exactly like a body that flung itself from a great height and had a very unfortunate fall. Her eyes were obscured by the metal, and yet she had managed to shift herself into a position where they would face him if they could.

De- tec- tive.

Fixer breathed heavily. Not only was how his “followers” looked still ever so horrifying, but he could only guess how to interpret her meek utterance.

What are you trying to say?

De- tec- tive.

Twitching slightly, the Victim had one of her legs smash into the other, the more openly damaged and broken one colliding into the one that made her limp even more severely, almost entirely covered in metal bolts. The sight of that leg made Fixer shudder, as now he remembered the details of the encounter in the forest.

She was apologizing.

It was at that point that Fixer’s Rationale had fully realized that whatever was wrong with his mind must have taken full control, as he went on to say:

It’s… alright. You didn’t know anything. You didn’t know any better. It’s okay now. I promise, - his voice tried to twist itself into something remotely comforting, solidifying the assumption.

De- tec- tive.

With a screech of metal, her body turned, and she pointed - as hard as she could - at another Victim, who also departed from the group that had already shambled their way to the rectangle. An especially dark figure in the very dim light, carried through from numerous meters above, Fixer recognized the Victim as the one that killed him.

He shuddered in place, daring neither to stay away from the others for long, nor to come close to Fixer himself. A miserable sight, the leather-bound figure with sharp spikes of different shapes protruding from seemingly random places, he barely instilled any fear that one would expect from a being that once brought death. A good number of the sharp pieces went right through his body, contorting it heavily. His mouth was devoid of skin, and hung open perpetually.

She wanted to apologize for him, too.

The unicorn lowered his head and sighed deeply.

He didn’t know any better either. Don’t blame him.

After all, it may just have been inertia that threw his head onto the dangerously prolonged spike that was mounted on the Victim’s forehead, mockingly turning him into a sort-of unicorn. It exited right down the neck.

It’s okay. I don’t hate you.

He could not have known if they understood him at all, but it seemed that the tone of his voice was approval enough for them - the Victims nodded and shambled on to meet the rest at the center of the dimly lit spacious chamber, Fixer an expected guest.

The unicorn looked around once again, stepping weakly but with determination, an errant ping within his tumor-filled mind wishing for a light spell of some sort - as adapted as his eyes were to the dark, he still saw little more than shapes in the distance. They resembled bookshelves, cadaver carts, couches, stools, pieces of wood - all sorts of absolutely unrelated things, put together to form strange bulging shapes, filling the huge room that could not possibly have fit within the precinct. It reminded him of something… almost royal. Huge pillars loomed within sight, but seemed ghostly in the near lack of light.

At the center of all, though, was his destination - the big, strangely full in its shape object that cast its shadow over the Victim congregation, doubling the dark.

Detective.

The official-looking Victim in the lead acknowledged his having reached their goal. Everyone else took to the ground, leaving only him and her standing. Fixer looked warily at the darkness in front of him, the only verifiable thing being the neck-torn Victim leader. As his heartbeat wound up, he squinted and saw that she was pointing to her side - true enough, there was an extension of the darkness. The longer he stood near to it, the less comfortable it felt, but nevertheless, he made a step ahead.

“I don’t like this.”

Breathing heavily and letting out errant coughs, he recognized the extension as a table - and on it, he saw something surprising. Something familiar. His grey telekinetic aura enveloped the object as he brought it closer for further inspection.

My lamp? How did you?.. - the unicorn asked the now-rhetorical question.

Detec… tive.

Fixer was almost surprised to hear the leader sound this unsure and shaky. Every word of hers - all one of them - always sounded determined, albeit croaked and wheezing. Now, it seemed like she was almost ashamed of what she was telling him in her singular language.

Detective.

Her head shifted, the slightly flickering glasses signifying that now her eyes were drawn towards the rectangle in front of them. Fixer realized that this must have been why they brought his “flashlight” back, however they did it. They wanted him to see whatever it was that stood before them, dark and ominous. Whether they somehow knew that he could no longer muster the strength to cast light himself, or simply did not know that he could do so at all, Fixer had no idea.

“This is ugly.”

He took a deep breath and gave the lamp a shake, bringing it back to life with a ray of light that consumed almost all of the darkness in front.

Fixer’s eyes shrunk and his breath grew labored and erratic.

“Well, someone is self-critical.”

How… how did you… why… who?

No, he did not understand at all. It made no sense. It made no sense, and it stared him down like a tiny senseless speck that thought it could change something.

Detective.

It was him.

A gigantic, monstrous portrait of himself stared Fixer down. And this time, it was not lenient.

This was a horrid combination of all versions of the frightening image that he had seen to that point. Pieces of him went from sick, to relatively normal, to the impossible, geometry-defying gaping maw that he so wanted to be a figure of his imagination. Together, they formed a singular inconsistent form that stared at him, belittling his very existence with its pulled-together eyes.

The Aberration was all but there in full form. Only the other parts suppressed it, and that would not be for very long.

Even worse was that he could see that it did not simply become so by itself. Stacked together, plucked up and stitched, these pieces were made from other portraits, and the awful truth seemed to be that those were his own Victims that did this. It was their work of art, dedicated to him. He tried to fight against the idea, but that was until his knees betrayed him and moved his near-unmoving gaze to where the vest and chest of the picture-Fixer was.

There, in big, shaky letters, he saw three letters.

“G O D”

I’m so sorry.

“That’s not enough.”

I know.

“Well, I know what is.”

- No. No, no, no no no no no no no no.

The black, foul residue from the kilometers-reaching cluttered pipes flowed, filling him to the brim with visions and ideas and toxic waste.

So cold.

- No, no, no. No. You… You’re not real. You’re not real. You… you…

He rose from the ash and the grime, and inhaled the lung-rending air to exhale a breath of turpentine and cropped black smog.

They knocked, they shuffled.

- You… you… No. No, no. No. You can’t be real.

She stuttered, lying on the ground. Her eyes had lost focus and her speech had become senseless. As the primordial dread, so clearly intricate in the network around him, engulfed her utmost being, she had served her purpose.

They were afraid.

- Ha. Haha. N-not real. Ha, ha, hahahahahahhhhhahahahahhhh

His eyes opened, and poured through them cold electric light, signaling to the engine of deconstruction, summoning its loud siren to ring the end of the world gone wrong.

Fear. There was no fear.

- Hahahahahahahaahahahahah, haha, haaaaahahah

The spasming shape on the floor, a tiny insignificant speck to him, was still a pillar of existence for this wretched world, coming apart at its seams. He stretched out his arm and commanded her neck to face the sharp transistor, throwing the lifeless body at the door, painting a red carpet for a new age.

Now there were none.

He was alone.

When a loud, ear-rending roar awoke him, he was surprised to find out that he had to be woken at all. His body plastered over the dust-covered stone pedestal that lead up to the picture, he felt as if only a second ago he was reeling in horror from what he had seen on the canvas.

Now, the surroundings had gotten much brighter, and there was not a lost soul nearby.

How did… - Fixer had to stop to cough, his lungs pumping out more sick waste to expel from the works.

The awful vision that befell him must have deprived him of consciousness, the time that passed - of company. Their masterpiece shown, the Victims must have shambled away in shame of the effect it had taken on their god.

The unicorn’s rising head slumped against the floor. No words of any description could describe how wrong it all was. Weakly smashing himself against the stone, he tried to beat his thoughts into submission, but all he had achieved was a “clank” echoing through the vast chamber, his horn colliding with the harsh surface.

“Get up. Time to get to work.”

I…

“Lift your head up. Come on, get the fuck up. Time is short.”

Why do I even… - numb-legged, he got his body off of the floor, and braced against the inevitable headache.

“It’s coming.”

What? - Fixer mumbled, his eyes ripping themselves open, and was immediately overtaken by an entirely different matter - controlling his desire to fall back into blackness.

The portrait. It was different.

No. No, no, no.

“I know it’s not pretty, but come on, it’s just a portrait. Get going. Wasting time.”

Hyperventilating, the unicorn tore his eyes off the picture that drilled his soul itself with its formless shapes, the gaping maws of the eyes and mouth radiating sheer repulsion. Somewhere in the back, be it of the room or his mind, Fixer heard the roar again, and felt everything shake. Hastily, he grabbed the lamp, mercifully remaining next to him on the floor, and shook its ray of light to life, departing from the wretched work of art and as far from the sound as possible.

“Good. You have to see it for yourself. That’s next. Can’t say it. We are very, very close now.”

With every step, the walls seemed less and less supportive of the ceiling, the room preparing to tear itself down and bury him within. Afraid that his heart would outrun him, he almost ran to where he somehow knew he had to go - a set of iron bars and a door that stood at the far end of where his light could reach.

What is-

“Absolutely no good.”

Yelping in surprise, Fixer barely leapt out of the way when the section of the floor to his right suddenly disintegrated - in its place, materializing out of nowhere and covering the dreadful grey void, came to be something that nearly burned Fixer’s eyes - both literally and figuratively. Having been given twice more than enough reason to hurry, he ran a weak gallop towards his goal, having shut his irrigated eyes that fought the foul toxicity.

“They lived here, I think. All this trash… probably made huts out of them. It’s almost funny in some way. Too bad it’s all ended like this. It was mildly entertaining to watch.”

Finally, as the terrible roar echoed again, the door had been reached - and promptly broken through, Fixer being sent into a rolling halt on the strangely smooth surface below.

How… how could-

“What did you expect?”

I… I don’t know, - the unicorn said, his eyes still itching, but no longer refusing to fall under his control.

His ears perked up when the blood flow stopped its maniacal thumping - nothing but his own ragged breath and heartbeat could be heard. Somehow, the roar was gone, and so were the quakes. Instinctively, his eyes opened, and met a pair of themselves.

A cold tingle running down his spine, Fixer crawled back and against the wall, but made a relaxed breath when the pony in front of him did the same.

Mirrors again, - he uttered, observing the room he was in.

“You tell me.”

The fact that the iron bars were gone and had been replaced by glass of different sorts - including the mirror panel in front of him - was barely surprising. Having become accustomed to feats of insanity, be it his or the world’s, Fixer took the time to relax and assess the surroundings. In good part that was to avail himself of the vision of the foul metal intestines ripping through the grey stone, pulsating and leaking a terrible chemical odor - so as not to fear its resurgence. Giving his head a prod with his hoof, Fixer concentrated.

It was a small room, almost completely covered in glass, at times shifting into old, scratched wood panels. Even the floor was glass - surprisingly solid and reflecting him from below. Moving the light off of the mirror surface, Fixer saw that there was a desk right around the corner.

With little to do but stare at his reflection, now associated with the dread-instilling portraits, he got himself to rise and keep walking, his limbs still shaky after the panic-fueled run. Wearily stepping, he listened to the echo, and concluded that there could not have been anything outside the room. That was despite him having clearly come from an enormous space that was about to collapse in but a few minutes. Focusing on more immediately important issues, the unicorn moved the light to the desk, and received an instant reward for his rational actions - on it was the diary, complete with his name on the cover.

Alright, that’s… - he spoke so that there would be some sort of verbal congratulation, - That’s better.

“Above.”

Rising a curious brow, Fixer took a glance at the wall by the desk. On it was a page from the memo book - carefully taken out and pinned to a wooden panel with a piece of glass. As he had the light illuminate the paper, he was surprised to read:

“Day (3) ?1/4 MUST BE ENOUGH

They bought it. Never thought found YOU AGAINTHIS
once shatteredonsider me. Granted, there are problems. WAS NOT THE PLAN

Problem one - I’m pretty sure that if the fever does not let off, it’s mugs up for me. Ever since the… encounter in BROKEN been getting worse. I can barely walk in a straight line without a headache now. Expectedly, it makes my task rather difficuvictims show signs SHATTERING TIME
PIECE TOGETHERsn’t sound too farfetched. IS SHORT

Problem two - that CAN FIXh is far too suspicious. It must be some sort of a cruel joke. Of all of them, she has got to be the dullest tool in the shed… and yet, she is the only one to think that maybe a stranger with their photos in his things is a cause for alarm. CAN SHAPENot that I can’t take her. GET IT BACK

FRAME FIxER FIND MORE
wILL SHAPE JUST ONE LEFT
MAKE SPACE SHE KNOWS
DO NOT ESCAPE REMEMBER
THEY LURE YOU HAVE
ORt is wrong. TO FIX
until next
I think the timber wolves and the forest might not be my biggest problems on the way out.”

He recalled the entry - it was there before, one of the first he had found inside the blood-glued book. Reading through it again, he was not only disgusted to find more parts fitting together in the awful story, but also surprised to see that not all of it remained the same.

That wasn’t there before… was it? - asking nobody in particular, Fixer looked at the familiar writing added in the blank spots, contrasting with that which he remembered. These words would always be plastered over the original text, blurring and making it absolutely illegible.

“No it wasn’t.”

So what-

“I think it has a point.”

Tilting his head, the unicorn took the page off the wall and decided to put it back into the book - to his surprise, it immediately opened.

To his dismay, it was now full of absolutely blank sheets. All the entries were gone.

Oh, for f-

Halfway through cursing whatever made it so, he felt a familiar feeling of roaches coursing through his skin and desperately trying to escape. His coat electrified as he could swear his ears had begun to curl under the noise. When something behind the door he now stood in front of made a shuffling sound and a faint echo of wind carried itself to him, he realized that a discordant criss-cross of visual noise his eyes were catching was not result of exhaustion.

whhahawho do you HAHAHAHA nonononono NO THNK WHO WHY?

“A very good point.”

He had lost track of time. Drifting in scalding delirium, he only caught rare instances of peace and quiet, when his mind would finally return to the hospital room he was confined to. As much as he despised it and all of its surroundings, a small part of him shuddered and cried within, dreading the visions that inhabited his dreams, day and night. The only highlights were when they came to mock him, plunging him deeper and deeper into resentment.

The one way to preserve sanity and a cohesive narrative of events was the journal. His memo book, concealed from everyone else, hidden and rigged by magic he was no longer even remotely capable of in his current state.

Past pages of sketches, random alcohol-fueled thoughts and cryptic half-words, he wrote down as much as he could. Eventually, he had to repeteadly read the previous entries to find out where he was, or what was happening - aside from the task, searing in his head. When the entries had begun to disappear, him absolutely sure that he had in fact written on that day, he realized that not even that was going to keep him in his own loop.

As he coughed out more oily ichor, his senses perked up, still dampened by the ripping drift within. There seemed to be noone approaching the room - this was the time.

Shaking and blurry-eyed, he revealed the book and got to a blank page, scarcely remembering the flow of events and barely conscious enough to even check if any of the entries were there anymore. Relying mostly on whatever blurry recollection that resided in his mind, he got out the pen and spasmed it over paper:

“Day ???

I’m a fly in a bear trap. I’m stuck, and I can’t even see what I’m stuck to. Am I? I don’t know. My head, my lungs, my eyes, I can’t rely on them, I can’t feel them, they don’t work anymore. Not for me. I think it’s been a week, but I can never be sure. A week since what? A week where? What is a week? Nothing is right.

These were the only things I could trust, not even myself. Now they are missing. Like I’m dreaming it all up. I hope I am. I hope I wake up, and it all goes away, and then I wake up again, and it drifts further and further, and then I never wake, and everything is fine, and nothing is wrong.

Nothing is wrong. Remember, nothing is wrong. It’s all I know and it’s wrong. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong world, wrong wrong wrong.

It told me it wants home. Myself… I’m not sure how I’m writing this. Or thinking. I can barely feel my horn. I think things and they’re on paper. It’s never that easy. My hearts beat and I breathe in the air, but nothing comes out. The cogs grind and grind and the noise never stops. I can’t feel my legs. Where is he? Where has he gone to? Who is he?

What is my rationale?

I don’t know. I think I do. I hope I’m writing.

No, I don’t.

I hope it’s not real.”

The siren sounded off again, and he convulsed, twisting in his bed. Soon, so soon.

Fixer looked to his sides nervously, unsure of what to do. He recognized this one, he did, and that memory expunged the one that just bashed into his mind. They had met before. He recalled its distorted, jagged blue shape stretching towards him in its half-flight, and felt his breath clog up.

-nononon why YOU?

Quickly pushing the journal into his pocket, the unicorn fled back to where the room took a corner, and listened carefully. The Error was outside, he could hear reality whine at its every step. It was moving - it always was, he knew. Banishing all errant thoughts from his mind, he held his breath and waited until the terrible noise distanced. To his luck, it seemed unable to detect his presence - or, perhaps, there was some other reason that no normal mind, however normal his was, could understand.

What he did understand, however, was that if he wanted to make it out and make things right, it would require him to open the door and face whatever was outside. A few seconds passed, and his mind was made up - with a dry gulp, he moved the door open.

this HOW how no howreal?

Immediately, he had to shield his eyes - so bright was the outside. He expected light and wind - they always followed the blue Error. Them, and openings to the grey void that enveloped the whole world. He defended himself not only against the bright light, he also kept away the nauseating texture that was sure to be facing him. Once the pain in his eyes had settled down, he made a wary turn and faced away from where the wind was coming - the gate of the Error.

His vision adjusted, Fixer was half-surprised and half-sickened at the scenery. It was a long, tall, narrow corridor that blended itself into others much like it. The auxiliary sections of his old precinct immediately came to mind - familiar shapes and the same feel of age and decay.

What was sickening about it, however, was that the shape was all that the place took from them. It was a whole sparkling rainbow of putrid colors, with what looked like actual clouds and pieces of the sky, cumulus - solid, as if frozen, growing where dull walls once were, and with mirrors lining up on the floor and ceiling.

There was no void, a huge section of a former wall conceding to a dent that culminated with an eye-rendingly out of place tangled mess of greased filthy metal. It gaped open among the colorful horror and stray cumulus, as if pointing towards how unerringly wrong it was. The foul odor coming from it, combined with the freakish mix of colors and ill-placed surroundings, made him want to hurl - but he knew that this was no time for weakness. The Error was still nearby, hunting him and wishing for something indecipherable.

nonono notreal who?

He took a deep breath and started his way. The blue hunter may have been around any corner, but Fixer knew not to think of that. He marched on, mapping out his way - far down one of the branches was a familiar, blooded, smudged piece of paper, contrasting clearly with the overly bright surroundings.

Every step echoed through the web, completely implacable in any geometric sense. He saw clouds rip open at the blink of his eye, and fill up sections with a turn of his head. Whether that was his worn down mind succumbing to the immense pressure that has been banging on his temples for what felt like hours, or the place routinely changing himself, he did not care. From his own knowledge, that was not the blue Error’s specialty. That was what the orange one did - and it was gone. It was all he wanted to know.

The piece of paper remained illuminated at the far end, and he saw the glass in it twinkle among the ghastly lights of the shifting corridors.

“Fixed them. Now again.”

It took much longer than it could possibly have taken, but at last Fixer realized that he was nearing the page. That was when his eyes, once again, had begun to go black and white with spastic tears that scratched like sand paper. Thrown off his balance, he got back on track - but now, the blue Error’s presence was haunting him, so close, just behind his back.

youyouyouyouyou are youyouyouyou no no not not REAL who ARE

“The Shard. I need the Shard.”

Fuck… off… - he spat out, galloping towards the sheet at the turn of the corridors, and battling the growing screech inside his head.

Mechanically, he pulled out the glass shard from the paper, and threw it behind himself. With a sound that nearly sent him back to thoughtlessness, it had the Error emit something Fixer could barely describe, and disperse on the spot. Barely half a second of relief later, however, its yells emitted from a further point in the maze. It was not gone - it was only set back.

That barely surprised him. That small shard was different from the rest of the glass, but it was not the same as what he had taken to searching. He finally formed out his plan - survive as long as he can until the treasured shard comes into being. The pages, pinned by smaller ones, were secondary. He knew he had to fix, and for that he would need to reunite.

It made no logical sense. It was silly, in fact.

“You don’t really know where you stand.”

But it was a good thing to focus on. He kept going, haunted still by the Error’s distorted calls, and strengthened his resolve with a look on the page he had gathered.

“Day? - ask nurse2/4
BETTER LIKE THIS?
It skips too often. Look out for them my ass, everything is much more complicated, always is. Keep phasing out. Hard to stay awake. Still capable, but just barely. Even harder to keep the book from the nurses. ALWAYS
DIAMOND ROUGH a trigger
BROKEN KEY not for long
IN REFLECTION very easy
THERE IS NO FEAR once complete
UNTIL NEXT she is out
FIXED THEMng pain. Have to find out what the pills are made of. They taste different in here. Like there’s sugar in them.

ALWAYS WATCHING”

Fixer felt a smirk spread over his face as he continued his way through the Error-infested labyrinth. A twisted game of cat and mouse.

She can watch all she want.

“Not like there is much to look at.”

He was the cat.

Cerebral Extraction

The walls had eyes.

how did how no no no

These eyes were his.

It struggled so hard, skipping between planes, but unable to leave. Stalking the corridors, all full of mirrors, skies and clouds, watching and preying. Now it was him.

Segregated from the rest of the whole world, this one must have thought itself special. The freedom to see and go anywhere - just move your reality-rippling amoeba of a body through the mirror, and there you are, free to terrorize whoever remained to see your wretched shape.

It never counted on who it was that remained.

who

He trod the halls, his eyes bloodshot and the smirk on his lips threatening to send his face into spasms. This was the heart of wrongness, the lair of all that was wrong with the world, and in it, he was king.

He listened to the Error whimper its mangled pleas, and recalled all the times it tried to devour him, haunting and representing the sheer horror this world could inflict on someone as low as him. Now he was low no longer, having tasted the fear and repulsion it felt towards him. At last, he felt appropriately. Despite the ravaging illness, the jagged edges within him ripping and moving through his skin and exiting out in black blood, he was omnipotent.

The grainy black and white layers sprung over his sight yet again, accompanied by a painful screech - the Error tried to preserve its worthless being. Its non-body came into being right in front of him, blocking out the eerie light that the mirror walls emanated.

you dont you you who HOW

Within just a few seconds, it disappeared, crying out somewhere in the back of the maze. Inside his reeling, shuddering, triumphant body, Fixer felt a mix of terror and delight. He could not stand being near them.

They could not stand being near him.

The unicorn trod on, towards the page that hung above what looked like a decayed, twisted poster, stuck on one of the wall mirrors. The blurred and mismatched figures on it resembled ponies flying in the sky, but it was impossible to see it any clearer. For one thing, the luminescence of the mirror labyrinth hurt his eyes, for the other - he did not care in the least what it used to be.

What he did care about was the object the page was pierced by.

Together… - he said, his own voice sounding surreal and echoing far down the halls, - ...again.

The shard. Finally, it was there.

“Impressive.”

He had hunted the corridors with the whimpering blue Error for so long. Time slipped away, matter slipped away, everything slipped away - he barely paid attention to the pages anymore. It had become a sport, where with each goal achieved, his “pursuer” would go weak and wobbly, like a wolf afraid of a sheep.

This was no wolf. This was an Error, a thing that could not possibly think or exist on the same level as him.

And it had learned to fear him.

Come to me. - Fixer whispered, snapping the treasured shard out of the paper and hastily checking the writing on it.

“Day (2)? (3 / 4) DO YOU SEE NOW?

What a mess. That is the one thing I know for sure right now. This is an utter mess. I barely remember… I barely want to remember. so simple

Time will tell if anything I went with is going to work. As it stands right now, my temporary residence plan is taking hits. Not only am I stuck in a hospital, but I also feel the part. Now, I have plans that turn that to my advantage… only that does not make up for what is going on. Really wish I could buy that it’s all just a fever I caught in there.

WON’T LET OUT FORGET
PUZZLING PLAYING GOD
DARE DEFY THIS IS
FOLLOW THE REAL THINGight be suspecting something, can’t be sure. Sure isn’t a flying disaster, but something seems wrong about her. Difficult to track, too. Seems she’s one of the few who actually work for a living and don’t have much time to visit some weird fuck in the hospital. Will have to work her out somehow. Or at least explain that not everyone shares her obsession. I swear, I get a stomach ache just when I look at them. YOU CAN FIX EVERYTHING

The rest were around, but I must have passed out then. Will continue later. Should secure the book, hell will break loose if any of them find it. FIXER

My head is killing me. Hard to think. Maybe I’m just tired… or maybe my plan may just get easier to execute.

In the worst way possible. As always.

ENGINEER GREATNESS

RATIONALE

ABOVE ALL”

Even the obscure markings on the pages agreed. Here, he was god. And it was his own insecurity that kept stopping him from being able to see it before.

It was time to put an end to that. He would open the throat of the problem, to close its eyes.

COME TO ME! - Fixer yelled, his voice a loud shriek, resonating off the mirror panels and shaking the very foundation.

He looked around himself, standing in a crossroads of paths, surrounded by branches that lead to twisted corridors. All mapped in his pulsating mind. Every step, every sound, and every echo went through his head, and the ears that would only catch his own heartbeat told him exactly where the defiant, worthless Error was.

It would shift in and out of sight, standing just on the brink of vision, and moving in place. But to come close to him took much more than it had - the few times it did so were when he was near to the pages. He did not know or care if it knew what they meant, but it did know that in them was its undoing.

no no no no no no

Yes.

no no who ARE YOU NO no

He flicked his tail in annoyance, the Error only blinking at the end of several corridors at once. It knew it was done, it could never leave what it thought to be its own perverted bastion. And still it would draw out the last moments. Spasming, he stepped towards the incoherent, rambling blue shape.

I said yes.

no no no

I - SAID - YES, - he roared at it, and heard several mirrors break, the sweet, familiar toxicity finding its way into his lungs once again, - COME HERE!

The smirk he wore stretched out even further as the Error found itself unable to move. Was it powered by his fear? Was it left to contemplate its last moments, cut off from the source of power it once had? Was it so terrified of finally being fixed like an Error should be that all it could do was stand, incoherent, and flicker like a broken lamp?

no not real

A panel right behind the Error broke, and through it he saw a welcoming shape emerge, piercing through the room with its curved steel and twisted metal. More and more of these broke in, closing off any paths for the discordant entity to escape, and protecting him from the vicious, colorful grey void. Soon, all of this world would be converted - his responsibility, after all - but now, a dissenting element would have to answer for its actions.

I disagree.

Fixer marched towards it, the burning pain in his head and limbs only fueling his drive. The Shard almost hopped in enjoyment, carried by the unicorn’s telekinetic grasp, and sprung forth new textures, but another glance at the whimpering non-thing in front of him made Fixer refrain from using it. He put it into his chest pocket, and picked up a shard from the floor.

no NO

I. Said. YES, - he screamed at it, stabbing the small piece of glass into the Error.

It yelled out in a gut-wrenching jumbled cacophony of all sounds that a thing like it could find to represent pain. Its shape no longer stood - what little of it remained reminiscent of an equine now kept to the floor, lying down.

You-

Another stab, another wail.

Are-

More pain, and more cries.

All-

His vision gave out completely, surrendering to the black and white layers of grains that flickered inconsistently.

THAT IS WRONG-

A scream so tortured, his ears had begun to bleed. A minute annoyance.

WITH THIS WORLD.

No longer needing his senses, he let the Shard slide itself into his grip, and finished the useless, broken, bleeding thing on the floor. A new scream sounded through the halls, but this one he welcomed - a deep, lifeless sound. The roar of an engine that was detained for so long. He felt his flesh-filled legs give out and crash him on the floor as the smell of gasoline, sulfur and turpentine filled the broken air.

Broken. A broken cloud. A broken, wretched sky. A torn visage. A broken line in the broken sky. A broken building. A broken crowd. Broken faces. Broken places.

“Now just don’t go too far. Can’t lose it yet. We are so close.”

His stomach emptied itself through his throat, and he cringed on the ground, laughing, crying, and bleeding at the same time.

What was his mind?

Better by the minute. Each step saw him become worthier of the gift he bore within.

The surroundings snapped, creaked and screamed, transforming fully into what he knew they were. Broken visions, broken geometry, broken laws, clear before, obvious now. A thousand engines revved up, tearing through the blasted land from inside. He held the Shard tightly, and let it cut through him with greatness.

He made step after step, and felt the weight in his body shift itself. He momentarily presumed that the experience should be torturous beyond belief, but these thoughts were dismissed, and he continued on, his tissues and bones turning themselves in place. The more changed, the more comfortable it was.

His eyes saw nothing but flickering grains, and everything in existence, all at once. He saw the two that remained, and in his chest, a spring came in motion. A smirk came over his face, until he realized that it no longer could.

He ripped through the barrier, and pressed on, to the tall building in the middle of the square. In less than a minute, his body transcended the capabilities of the powerful, majestic, silly, childish magic barrier, and saw him move effortlessly through the desperate field.

She was making things interesting.

Fixer’s breath and heartbeat became the only things in existance. He rummaged through piles of scalding hot metal and choking fumes, scrambling aimlessly, his consciousness begging to be cut like a tumor. Thoughts ground themselves into small, illegible pieces, and offered him only so much to help stay within.

“That wasn’t me. That wasn’t me. That wasn’t me, that wasn’t me, that wasn’t me.”

In some time, his sight returned - the screeching, flickering black and white grains layered themselves out before his eyes, obscuring the darkness he was submerged in before. Whatever power his body could muster was routed to the legs, so that he may keep crawling as far as he could.

“Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong.”

As he had begun to feel his limbs, woolen and numb, his mind circled in a hurricane of ill-repressed thoughts. Questions, answers, conclusions. Everything nobody ever would want to see or know about themselves.

He watched the world end, over and over again, and felt an existence-defining happiness and a soul-rending horror at the same time. He was king, jester and persecuted.

He was wrong.

He was so, so wrong.

“nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong”

He wanted so hard not to know anything, to be set back to the beginning, amnesiac and unknowing of the horror both inside and outside. What was he, really?

His bruised mind coughed up images cut into little pieces. He looked at his own hateful glare, staring himself down, and at his blurring features in the mirrors. If only he could believe that that was all he was - just a quadrupedal brown speck in a rough police vest, and little more than that.

But no. He was something much worse. Convulsing under the sight of the black shape, screaming out through its faceless visage, he saw it all too fitting that the vest it wore refused to be a simple hallucination. Stung further, he realized that it was taking the place of the grains that covered his eyes, all too similar to them in shape and nature.

“Enough. We don’t want that.”

The unicorn made a choked breath, and immediately gagged on the fumes around. That did not matter - he had found something to grasp onto. Something that would carry him out of the drowning whirlpool.

Wh- what do I… - Fixer gurgled, struggling to form words under the strain and the pain.

“You calm the hell down. You’re doing well, remember that. Considering. Much better than could be anticipated. Just don’t lose it.”

His knees creaked with pain, and Fixer realized that he had come, in his blind meander, to a staircase.

“Come on, make a step. That’s it, you’re doing fine. We are very close. Just keep walking and don’t fuck anything else up.”

With every step conquered, he felt the colossal fire within his mind quench itself acre by acre, relieving him of the painful images and thoughts. At nearly five steps, his sight had mostly returned, showing him a dimly lit old stairwell.

Wh… where?..

“Up. You only have one room to go through, do you know that? That’s right, you do. Isn’t that great? Now get going.”

The thought nearly made the pain subside, his lungs freed of the gases that surrounded the twisted metal of his escape. Having looked around, he felt his stomach shrink, the sight of the path behind him sickening to all senses.

“This was inevitable. It would have broken through in any case. It wants its master back far too much. We won’t let that happen, will we?”

M… master?

“Well, yes, the master. It depends how you interpret the word. Most definitions fit, though. In a way.”

Who… what is it?

“That’s not a conversation we want to have right now. Trust me. It’s all for your safety. You won’t get it, anyway.”

The denial of Fixer’s inquiry somehow calmed the storm within his head near completely. By when he was two flights above the cacophony of mismatched pictures and dripping metal, he was already thinking, breathing, moving and seeing. The new clarity, given to him by the assurances made, repressed the world-rending thoughts deeper into a weeping pocket of his mind, and sealed them until further notice. He was guided now, and he felt empowered.

He was so close. It reminded him of the feeling he had when the Shard was around, and-

No. No, no, no! - Fixer gasped, a horrid connection making itself regardless of any repression.

“Oh, calm the fuck down. It was about time you realized that. It’s fine. You won’t need it for much longer. You were exposed for so long, and you’re still relatively stable. One more time won’t hurt. And if it will, well… as long as you’re operational.”

Are… are you sure? - the unicorn whispered, climbing up the stairs still, the visions of the bloodstained glassy transistor matching up with actions he feared to think of.

“Trust me, I would know.”

How?

“It’s mine.”

Fixer came to a complete halt, his brain having frozen up after having received that. It took him several seconds to melt through the sludge of confusion, and have his legs keep making upward steps. He threw himself from anger to fear to relief, the thought that something so close to him was not his at all feeling so alien, and the memories of what that thing had caused forcing him to revile its very existence. Eventually, he continued in the state of relief, knowing now that no matter what it was, it would not be his fault.

“That’s the way you do it. You do have something to you, you know. Your… Rationale.”

An approving nod saw his spirits lift further, the staircase nearing completion. It was looking more and more peculiar with each flight, turning older, but not more weary. His senses, availed of the burden of horror and pain, allowed him to keep track of it as he ascended - it started dusty, abandoned, and made of cement, and turned to intricate stonework more and more as he progressed. At last, the final flight was in, and the architecture had transformed into something that tugged at near-nonexistent memories. It brought back not images, but words and stories - as blurred as any other memory, but open to perception still.

The elegant stone and torches of various shapes brought a feeling that felt both unsettling and intriguing.

Nostalgia.

It reminded him so much of something so distant. It was like a castle from a fairytale.

A castle.

THERE ARE MILLIONS OF MILLIONS OF MILLIONS OF STARS IN THE UNIVERSE

He felt his breath come to a stop when both his recently recovered ears and his still aching brain came to their realizations.

YOU HAVE KILLED THEM ALL.

Both of them were worst case scenarios.

“Signing off.”

Both were right.

The towers far away at the horizon mocked him, the sickening morning sun enveloping their bulging shapes like a layer of pus would a tumor. He looked at them still - every day spent in the unending hatred fueled his desire to see them fall more and more.

The one thing he appreciated about the immediate situation was that the longer he spent spasming and coughing out ichor, the less he could remember about them. About everything. Very soon, there was just blind, well-founded hatred for the governmental center of the world, and a dull, perseverant sense of defiant longing. Long forgotten thoughts dwelled so darkly deep in his subconscious that not even the coming purge would fully rid him of them. Hailings, legends… bedtime stories. They remained, if only to poke fun at how weak he was at the core, where it mattered. Radiant, colorful, full of thoughtless joy and horrid, senseless being.

He ground his teeth as yet another piece shifted its way through his body.

The towers would fall. He would not even have to lay siege to them.

They were not protecting the right thing.

An uneasy gust of wind blew in Fixer’s face, the ornamented door creaking itself open and bringing through a string of worn out pages.

Beyond the door was something massive, something that, even after all he had been through, Fixer could not fully accept as possible. It was only the audial information that insisted on the truth - it was an Error. Their botched, distorted tones were impossible to confuse for anything else in the whole world gone wrong.

Its visual appearance, though…

Fixer only closed his eyes when one of the pages hit him right in the face, obscuring the view and snapping him out of the stupor.

“4 / 4

YOU DON’T REALLY KNOW

WHERE YOU STAND

THERE’S SOMETHING INSIDE YOU

IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN

WE’RE GOING TO FIND OUT SOON

WHAT IS IT AND WHEN”

The strange contents of the otherwise blank page got the unicorn to rise an eyebrow, helping to get rid of the paralysis of the thing beyond the door. He barely skimmed through the contents, feeling as if he already knew what was written. Empowering as it was, he still had to consider what lay ahead.

Or rather, floated.

I SEE YOU.

F-fuck me, - the unicorn spat out, springing to cover by the wall next to the door.

He wanted to take about an hour to contemplate what he just saw, but the situation called for slightly less than a minute, the deafening roar of the engine sounding off dangerously close, overcoming even the Error’s speech.

The other Errors had somewhat percieveable shapes - equine, for the most part. While they were not at all consistent, they still remained within boundaries of what reminded him of a body not much unlike his own. This one was an Error as well, that he had fully agreed with himself on, but its sheer size made him crawl.

Nearly all of the chamber beyond the door was filled by a gigantic tear in reality, resonating in purple light and sparkling dozens of incoherent shapes into form, only for them to die off within the moment of their birth. It felt as if the universe itself was gutted with a rusty knife and set on fire, and this was the wound.

Fixer breathed in deeply, and made himself go out for another look, hoping to all that remained that something inside would help him evade the gaze of the distorted monstrosity. He peeked his head out, and saw the rest of the chamber - regally laid out, its floor meters below, the door evidently leading to what once was a balcony.

YOU ARE NOT LISTENING.

He ground his teeth, the jumbled words yelled out at him with such volume that it nearly pushed him back. Whatever filled this Error’s vocabulary, it was—

I WILL MAKE YOU.

Fixer’s body was ripped from place and violently thrown up into the air, nearly crushing his bones. In but a second, he was levitating in front of the existence-defying purple void that melted his mind with every moment he had to look at it. Panicking and frantic, he tried to look away and close his eyes.

LOOK AT ME.

Squashed even harder, like if he was a children’s toy, he felt his eyes open if only for the pressure his body endured. Blood poured from his mouth and nose, and he felt his mind begin to escape into the blissful dark.

YOU ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

Again, the Error swung him in the air violently, enveloping his body in purple fire that let off jagged smoke. He was crashed onto the floor with immense force, but remained fully intact. The flames burned all over him, preserving his coat, flesh and vest, but sounding off a horrible screeching sound that would not go away.

Several agonizing seconds later, the flames had disappeared, bringing back all the weariness and physical pain he had endured. Nonetheless, Fixer stood up, if only because his instincts gave him little choice but to do so, or crawl away in a corner and wait for death. This choice was becoming so trite that he had been accustomed to it.

YOU.

Painfully, he forced himself to look up, where in but a few meters the horrible Error began. His whole body was reeling and crying for an end, but all that he had suffered taught him that it was not going to be that easy. Coughing out blood, red and black, he continued to keep the massive Error within sight, even if that made his whole world swirl.

I KNOW YOU.

Fixer ground his teeth further, to the point where the sound could almost be heard over the rush of blood and the Error’s distorted screams.

DO YOU?

With a severe sickness in his stomach, he thought to answer, but then realized that his mind, mostly shut off in terror, had nothing.

The Error knew that, too. His body was gripped again and lifted from the damp floor, though with nowhere near as much excruciating pressure. He was not being held in a crushing fist, he was merely suspended in the air like a kitten. The unicorn knew what it would ask of him next, and moved his head to face the Error yet again.

As he did so, however, a glimmer of hope glistened in his heart, a mental shriek of terror keeping it company.

YOU KILLED US ALL.

He breathed incoherently, thinking of his next move. He would need to ignore as much of what the Error was saying, and find what little strength was in him to pick it up.

The Shard. It was in his pocket, neatly stuffed between the diary pages. The smog-filled blank eye stared at him from the surface. He stared back for a second, his eyes nearly dulled out by the pain.

I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU.

The moment he came anywhere near accustoming himself to the position he was in, the Error flung him through the air again, this time bringing him to the opposite side. A scalping pain emitted from his head, and he was forced to look up.

DOES THIS REMIND YOU? DO YOU REMEMBER?

He watched the stained glass and felt tears of sorrow join those of pain. He saw these pictures before.

Two sisters. Harmony.

A mismatched puppeteer. Chaos.

Lumbering metal and all-consuming smog. Destruction.

WE ENDURED SO MUCH.

He shuddered at a thought that visited him, still trying to get his horn to react to his calls.

AND ALL IT TOOK WAS A WORTHLESS MANIAC IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME.

At last, a spark jumped off the tip and the Shard had begun to move. Fixer needed only to endure a little more.

YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU ARE… EVIL. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXIST.

Swung again, he was brought dangerously close to the Error, nearly feeling its distorted shape with his snout.

YOU TOOK THEM FROM ME. WITHOUT THEM, I WAS NOTHING. AND STILL I WAS BETTER THAN YOU.

His eyes met the maddened gaze within the Shard once again. Now it was only to direct it.

YOU TOOK THEM AGAIN. YOU CUT THEM DOWN. BUT I AM DIFFERENT NOW.

A disgusting cold chill ran down his near unfeeling spine, convulsing in the unfathomable hold of the Error.

I

No-

STILL

His eyes widened as the intricate stone of the wall approached him, then closed as his body was smashed against it.

REMEMBER.

It crushed and crashed, seemingly aiming to liquify him. He had long ago let the Shard slip and fall down, and now only gasped as more and more of his blood covered the wall. Less and less of his body remained intact.

Just as he thought that it would give out, the flames engulfed him yet again, and he was back to ground zero.

AND YOU WILL PAY.

The Error threw him on the balcony once again, still engulfed in flame, and physically unharmed. His mind, however, was beginning to loosen the screws much further than he thought it ever could.

He did not know if the howling roar he heard and the quake he felt were real, but the Error was quick to assure him.

DO YOU HEAR THAT?

Fixer only opened his eyes, weakly looking at the roaring that accompanied the decaying of the once regal chamber.

THAT IS THE ENGINE OF OUR DESTRUCTION. THE SHADOW. YOU CALLED IT. AND NOW IT WILL DEVOUR US ALL.

The toxic fumes had begun to fill the air. He coughed, his body errantly expecting a much more painful experience, worn and confused by what the Error did to him to keep the torture going.

BUT DON’T THINK THAT I CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO YOU.

Delirious and weary, he rose from his embryo position, barely shaking in place.

YOU WERE TRYING TO KILL US ALL AGAIN. I CAN READ YOU. YOU MUST THINK YOU ARE SO CLOSE. IT IS JUST ME LEFT.

Fixer inhaled and exhaled in uneven spouts, weakly searching for a way down that did not involve jumping off the balcony and into the Error’s crushing embrace.

He did, in fact, find a staircase, and had begun to descend, defying his own worries of how the Error would just crush it from beneath him and have him in its grip again.

ALLOW ME TO DISAPPOINT YOU.

When he limped down to the lower level and looked at the Error, he realized that it was the least of his worries.

whhh who who

plea right all right

lright here not in

hhhmmmmm

soRrY

YOU HAVE ACHIEVED NOTHING.

His legs faltered and sent him to the floor, coughing violently. The floor was all covered in the salty liquid from way before - and the walls had begun to cover themselves with the background infection. He felt his eyes come close to popping out of their sockets as the intolerable screeching noise and flickers before his eyes engulfed all of his consciousness.

The Errors were back. He had achieved nothing.

BUT IT WAS NOT YOU ALONE.

sORry I didnt

Fixer tried to make sense of his surroundings, sheepishly opening his eyes and fighting through the storm of wailing fear and panic. The first things he saw and heard sent him deeper into desperation.

In front of him were old, abandoned, empty bookshelves and a bloodstained wooden bust. Corrupted by the mismatched texture ailment of the world.

Everything else was an eye-tearing mess of Errors, writhing in the air.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO DISSENTERS.

plEASe I never mEAnt tO

It was too late to possibly do anything to object when he finally realized what was going to happen. He collapsed in the pool of blood on the library floor.

The horrible tearing sound and the scream he heard transmitted such suffering that it bordered on the layers of comprehension. He realized that not even a millenium of being crushed and smashed against stone would compare.

I TRUSTED HER. BECAUSE I REMEMBERED. NOW SHE TAUGHT ME NOT TO.

Through the blindfold of the flickering grains before his eyes, Fixer saw things that he would never wish to describe with mere words and ideas. The scattered remains of his rational thought showed that all the Errors, aside from the yellow one and the purple one, had positioned themselves silently to the sides, observing the horrific spectacle and shivering in place.

Fixer could only wish that either his eyes or ears would, at long last, give out. The yellow Error’s screams, composed of violently distorted and barely traceable sounds, did not stop. They only paused - a noise akin to paper tearing apart would boom out, and in a few seconds the screaming would continue, doused with the same purple, jagged flames.

The purple Error squashed him like a plush doll. He was going up again.

THIS IS WHAT SHE DESERVES. IT WILL NEVER STOP. NOT UNTIL OUR WORLD FALLS APART AGAIN. NOW IT IS YOUR TURN.

The unicorn no longer even tried to respond, his thoughts were merely directed at quenching as many of themselves as they possibly could.

For the first minute or two, the Error simply continued to bash him into anything she could find in the library. The castle was already gone, but Fixer barely had space enough in his head to make note of that. The workings of the world gone wrong no longer had priority.

They had to make space for horror and pain. His body swung up and down, twisted in all directions, limbs separated, parts torn off, and then restored with the purple flame that gave out rectangular smoke.

I CAN DO THIS FOREVER. TEAR YOU APART PIECE BY PIECE, AND THEN AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN. UNTIL WE DROWN IN GAS AND METAL AND WE ARE GONE.

The voice was speaking in his head. At that point, the Error had not cast her flames on him yet, and he was still recovering from having had his head crashed into the ceiling several dozen times. His ability for denial came in helpful - he had sustained enough damage to kill over a hundred like him, but with a shimmer of willpower it all went away like a bad dream that refused to end. For him, it was only to be crushed and torn and endlessly screamed at by something incomprehensible, something massive, something so rightfully enraged.

BUT THAT WILL NOT DO. IT IS NOT ENOUGH. I CAN NEVER DO ENOUGH. NOT FOR WHAT YOU DID.

Just barely, he felt the grip ease on him, and his body return to the starting point. He fell to the floor, barely conscious and wildly amazed by the fact that he was still capable of controlled thought.

YOU TWO HAVE TAUGHT ME NOT TO TRUST. I CAN NOT TRUST MYSELF WITH YOUR PUNISHMENT.

He breathed, ravaged by phantom pain, his throat still believing that it was twisted open. His mind did what it could to block out the Error’s words, but it could not sustain the defense.

What could possibly be even worse? He thought he would be scared at the thought, but by that point a mental limit had been reached that had merely turned him curious.

GET UP.

Fixer’s ears perked up incoherently, the muscle memory still writhing in agony. He did what he could to sit up.

A harsh gust of wind hit him in the back. The Error had removed the bloodstained door, opening the way through.

GO IN THERE.

When he failed to comply, a distinct noise sounded out.

yshould get IN

With no choice but to submit, Fixer had begun to crawl towards the small, completely empty room with walls of bland cement.

As he made a painful effort to look back, he saw that six ponnequins had lined up behind him, staring his broken shape down alongside the Errors. Those that were not wailing in agony, something beyond mortal understanding torturing them endlessly.

thIS iS please not maKE al COMF right ORTABLE

He just wished everything would end.

The floor had begun to shake, and the familiar roar sounded off in the distance.

At least she would not suffer for long.

hhhrrrllllhmgrllrhhhrh

The wind blew in his face, freezing up the already cold sweat even further. There was nothing in there that could let out wind. It was just blank concrete and dancing shadows.

The only wind source was the broken window on the upper level. A shapeless chunk of metal covered in senseless wires and dripping with oil protruded from it.

you THINK WE ARE not no no you not you SHREDS

At last, he finished his crawl and got himself over the doorstep. Now he laid in the dry, lifeless room, surrounded by mocking, agonizing shadows. Combating exhaustion, he rolled over to face the Errors and the library from so long ago.

IN THIS WORLD, I AM POWER.

Fixer scowled and coughed, at last seeing actual blood, black and ichorous, come out of his mouth. For so long, he felt like his whole body was bleeding, but this was no delusion. At least something was an adamant fact. He still carried the sickness.

It was as good a thought as any while he prepared for what would happen next.

EVEN I FEAR THE THING IN THIS ROOM.

With that, the entrance to the library faded out of existence, replaced with the same grainy flickers he had seen so often.

The shadows had infested every wall. They screamed at him.

He laid down and breathed out, feeling more than dead inside. He saw the biggest shadow shape up in front of him and open its mouth.

What was she, really? What could she be? What was she for?

He cycled through the memories as the raindrops came short of dropping on him. The purple haze that covered the area was designed to restrain anything that moved, and was executed perfectly.

Only he did not move. The world moved around him.

With a violent swipe, he tore through the intricate magic barrier as if it was wet paper. His end goal was a matter of fact. Its significance, however… He thought back to the beginning.

She never made herself seen. The leader, that was no doubt. What the master let him know was primarily about her - the greatness she was destined for, the visions of the horrid world order she would continue to enforce. Clearly the cornerstone for all the terrors the two of them have had to live with for so long.

But he could not see anything up-front. Her visits, her words, all blurred out. He felt like he was being read - she knew exactly when to come so as not to raise suspicion, and avoid giving him any information. What he could not understand was why she would not simply kill him right there, as she definitely had both the tools to do so and the public respect to avoid repercussions.

Smarter than that, perhaps? Yes, she would play it to her advantage. Scheming, leading… in just a few years, a Princess.

He spat out a breath of sulfur at the mere thought of the word.

He was her test subject. To see how she would handle a perpetrator to further glorify herself in the outcome. Humble and vain, a figure of kindness for the mindless cattle, and a mind that he himself could only describe as truly evil.

The few times any of her words made sense, he outright refused to let them sink into his memory to make an imprint. She was challenging him, and he had accepted the challenge. Her assistant being in the capital, her asking him what he thought of the capital, her life in the capital, inquiries about his health… He knew enough. She was the future of corruption.

At last, the wretched, twisted building was within reach. A roar left him as he saw how it sparkled with the most putrid colors and gave out improper shadows, defying his vision.

His claws dug into the foundation, and he entered the library.

His face no longer could have itself in a smirk, but if it could, it would be the widest yet.

She had constructed her own demise.

About time.

Expiration

It’s been a while.

The shadow twisted and tore itself off the wall, stepping onto the dull concrete. The innumerable others, still yelling out their mute cries, remained confined to their places.

Fixer looked at the shadow that stood in front of him and scowled.

Do you think… Do you think you can scare me with this? - his mind was bubbling and boiling, yet he still managed to find enough words to talk back.

Well, if that makes you feel better, the intent was to do the exact opposite.

Drop the fucking act, - Fixer spat out before collapsing under the insurmountable pressure on his temples.

That would be difficult, - the shadow shrugged - The act is all on you.

The unicorn listened to the voice coming out of it and felt the fire inside his head consume all that it feasibly could. This was not right. This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You don’t look well. You never did to begin with, but… This just looks ugly. Are you sure you can walk? I need you to walk.

How could it be? He did not understand. His mind and body were already swollen with enough trauma to fuel an impenetrable insanity, but this question rose to the top of the pile and flashed red, like a police light. The shadow had fully taken form by then, and was one no longer - if it ever was.

The voice… The shape… it could not have been.

Go to hell.

The words left a trail of blackened blood on the floor.

Fine, so be it. I’ll just drag you.

Fixer felt a limb touch him, and instantly caught himself trying to think that it was a shadowy tendril, something unnatural, something impossible, something to be opposed, but it was none of that. This train of thought circled round, and could not find an end, conflicting with itself.

A sudden raspy scream pulled him out of the loop.

Oh, fuck my shit. The hell… You’re not right.

The unicorn’s eyes widened slightly as he realized that the wildfire in his head had half quenched, and thoughts nearly did not sting with each move. Even the frightening realization of the fact that explained it did not make him fear so much. With that touch, he had felt what he had been lacking for so long.

Something that had been lost ever since the genesis of the world gone wrong.

You… You…

Go on, tell me, - the voice sounded interested, and the timbre of it created a croaked unity, blocking out the soundless shouts of the shadows on the walls, - Maybe you've actually realized it yourself.

Fixer looked up at the stallion in front of him. He had a brown coat, a long horn, his snout bore several small scars, his mane was dull brown, and his iris was the color of smog. He wore a standard issue LPPD detective vest with the epaulettes and insignia removed.

You’re not real.

Oh dear, - the other one smacked himself on the head in frustration - You really are dense, aren't you.

He was missing half his face.

I am your Rationale, Frame Fixer.

And nothing was wrong.

And you are my split personality.

His eyes were still blurry, and so was everything else. Somehow, he got up. Somehow, he did not snap his own neck after having met the other one.

They had been walking for some time now. Fixer kept to himself through most of the way, still aching and feeling tired.

Fixer shrugged uncomfortably. He did not know what to think of it. On one side, it unnerved him to think that the other him was denying the name. On the other, it seemed fitting. On the most plainly visible side, there was another him. Whatever it was, it was clearly wishing to trick him.

That was no explanation for why he felt united and complete.

How long have you been there?

This world or "your" head?

“Figures.”

“Hello, I can hear you.”

Both.

“Why not talk like this then?”

“Boring.”

A while. You came second. I came first. In both cases. In hindsight, I really wish I didn't.

Fixer breathed in the stale air, and felt his insides retch as the toxic refuse made itself noticeable.

Do you feel that? That’s our timer right there. This thing isn't going away. This place will fall apart. Not if we don’t have anything to say about it.

Do we, though? - his sense of priority flashed bright for a second, otherwise swimming in the chaotic pool of thoughts and concepts that his mind had become.

I wouldn't have been nagging you all this time if we didn't.

The paths before them opened, closed, and formed themselves out of distant landscapes at the slightest whim of his companion. Limping to keep up with him, Fixer knew that sooner or later, he would have to find out why Rationale was there, and how he could possibly be real. If he could.

That was a very conflicting thought.

Look at this mess. I can’t believe you’ve managed to fuck it up even worse than it was at the beginning. Frame Fixer. So much for that.

However, as he saw the definite shades of sickness on the other unicorn’s body, combined with the all-too-familiar smirk, his desire to investigate was dulled further and further. The hole in the right of his head, which consumed part of the forehead and all of the eye, could not have been a good sign, either.

He just wanted to feel safe near something for a change.

You know, I really would have expected you to be slightly more surprised, - said Rationale, creating a corridor out of statues, floor tiles, rocks, trees and chunks of cement, - You just met your better self and you seem to be pretty fine. Did the brain damage carry through, by any chance? This isn’t normal.

Is anything anymore?

He really did not want to know the truth. At the same time, he needed to.

Good point. I can see you’re quite comfortable with not knowing. Fortunately, I can relate. Knowing hurts. It really does.

Somewhere far away, the metallic roar of the engine that he brought to life sounded off yet again. The earth quaked, even though there was no earth to quake.

Unfortunately, however... both of us will have to find out a lot today. Going to have to bring each other back to speed, so to say.

The familiarity had almost fully removed the physical and mental pain within him. Just being near Rationale felt right. They walked through the corrupted grey void that leaking toxic waste, but it no longer burned his eyes. Deep within, he felt they were closing in on something very important.

Deep within, he felt that something was wrong.

You must have figured out that I've been talking to you for a while now.

Yeah… I have. You masked yourself at first. Then, I never thought to notice that my own voice was telling me what to do.

Well, there’s no shame in it. You haven’t exactly had the smoothest road you could have had. Besides, you aren’t amazingly smart, so... don’t worry yourself about it. You haven't been alive for all that long, after all.

Something pinged and screeched within Fixer’s head, filling him with darker thoughts. His peace was being invaded. Somehow, the invasion felt right.

So if that’s how it is, then why did you never show up before? Why make me go through all this? This was your idea, wasn’t it? - he asked questions that he wished he would just concoct excuses for, - All this shit I had to go through, that must have been you. There’s noone else. What was the point?

Huh, so now we’re getting confrontational. At least we’re getting somewhere.

Rationale stopped, and the “floor” under them had begun to move on its own accord, sliding them to their destination. Behind both unicorns, sofas appeared. The other one took a seat, and motioned Fixer to do the same.

I’m sick of walking, anyway.

How about you answer my question? - reluctantly, Fixer sat down, his joints squeaking out in relief.

Oh, I’ll answer everything. Seriously, I will. I have to.

He stared into the gaping hole in the other unicorn’s face and felt less and less at ease in his company.

Really, do you?

I wish I didn’t.

The plot of tiles their sofas resided on slid ahead, traversing the grey void, only sometimes passed by objects floating in the now toxic nothingness. Statues, trees, furniture, bottles, toys, mirrors… Relics of a broken world.

Before I do so, however, I’ll have to do something extremely unpleasant. For me, that is.

What would that be? - Fixer tensed in his seat.

I need to bring myself in sync before I can do the same with you.

In sync?..

Oh, this is going to be very complicated. Look, just let me do it, and it’ll be much clearer.

Well, what does it involve? - as much as most of him protested, Fixer still realized that he was talking to something that was much more powerful than it seemed. He could not exactly skip out of the conversation.

I touch your forehead for a few seconds. Then, I swear a lot, and probably puke. Or, well, I would puke if I could.

Rationale stood up and reached with his hoof. Having gone through dozens of errant ideas, from jumping out into the void to trying to bash the other Fixer’s head in with the lamp, still somehow intact in his pocket, Fixer nodded and bent forward.

Useless. Useless. Useless. Useless.

Worthless. Pointless. Meaningless. Senseless.

Why? Why? Why? WHY? WHAT WAS THE POINT?

Who came up with this? Who made this? Whose sick, twisted, perverted idea was this world?

The core of the world he had to live in consistent of nothing but a pile of rainbow confetti. That was all that there was to it. He had lived there for so long, and in all those years, he was the only one whose head was in the right place. His purpose, his meaning - all so funny and silly to the rest of the mumbling morons that inhabited it.

Now… Now he had something that could change EVERYTHING. He could fix every problem there was. Not just fight with the symptoms, like he had done for so long in the miserable farce of a police force, but tear out the root and burn it with acid. His dreams, his fantasies, his world done right - they would at long last be real.

It was him that the Orb called to. He was chosen. Fate had it that way. It was never meant to be there, an alien mind, thrown through the wormholes into a two-dimensional world of pastel colors and shoddily painted rainbows. Roaring in anger, lost in space and time, it could not begin to comprehend the world it was thrown into, all too relatable. Desperate, it sent out a call, trying to find at least a single fitting operator. Many tried to answer, but none of them fit. They built a ritual chamber for it, but what did it matter?

It screamed at them, and they ended their useless lives, hanging from the ceiling, impaled on the edges of the bars, leaping down into the abyss to their broken doom, and cutting their throats with whatever they could find. All of them infected with the pointlessness of the world that refused to conform to reality.

At long last, it had found the one - or rather, he had found it. Irony had it that its operator would find it first. Sent to investigate. Solve a crime. That he did. The crime of their world’s existence.

It stopped time itself, let him into its chambers, and showed him what he would have to do, what he would have to bring back. It would worm its way into his body so that he may hatch it, and it would hatch him, and when he would be ready, the pillars of existence would be crushed. In their place, a new world, one that the Orb so longed for.

Home.

It reveled in its dreams, and imposed them on the carrier, crushing through his still primitive mind with concepts beyond his understanding. Eventually, it had to tone its influence down as the barrage was too much. He was still fitting, not perfect, but fitting. It sat content within him, ready to punish any uncooperative thought.

Everything screeched and scratched, like a vinyl record put through a cheese grater. His breath came before him, as he inhaled and exhaled frantically, still under effect of what he had seen.

This memory was not fleeting. He felt everything. He could still recall everything. It did not hide in the confines of his shambling mind, it was all out there, and he remembered all of it.

The Orb. The Orb. It was the Orb.

Fixer looked around, watching the surroundings get covered in distorted notches and broken up pictures in place of what used to be peaceful, oozing, grey nothing. Rationale was true to his word and laid tense on the couch, spitting and cursing under his breath.

I… I remember.

Oh, so do I. I remember. More than I would ever want to. I don’t have a body, - he drifted a hoof through his stomach, to minor surprise of Fixer’s, - And my gut is still curdling.

What did you just do? Everything’s gone messed up. It’s got to be you. Or is it-

Yes, it’s me, no worries. My stability is a bit integral to all of this… world. We should be worrying, but definitely not about this, no, not at all, - he propped himself against the couch and rubbed his head right over the hole, pieces of the hoof shifting right through it - See, I just took a trip down Memory Lane. Caught up to speed. Saw what you did. Ingested that what I've been missing. I’m complete now.

Fixer took a breath and immediately cringed in a heavy coughing fit, spitting out ichor and feeling the toxic air vividly, even in the in between the two of them were coursing.

It sucks.

A hoof extended in his direction once again, and he got up with Rationale’s help. Now, the nonexistent walls surrounding their makeshift tile and couch float scribbled and screeched in frequencies that were all too familiar. The feeling of unity with the other Fixer had begun to scare him.

I know what you are, - the unicorn stared the other right in the one eye he had. He called him a split personality. He thought he would just accept that.

Well, humor me, maybe we’ll save some time.

You’re the corruption.

Rationale blinked and tilted his head.

I remember your voice. You’ve been there for so long, you piece of shit, - another coughing fit interrupted Fixer, but Rationale seemed intent to keep listening, - It’s you who did all this. We exchanged memories just now, I know we did. I’ve seen so many of those like yours… Only mine were blurred. Like I wouldn't let them through. Like I fought them. Yours, I saw fucking everything. You liked this. This, all of this, it’s because of you.

The other unicorn exhaled slowly and brought a hoof to his face. Fixer continued.

I may barely remember what happened, but I’m not an idiot, I can piece it together. I don’t care how this… Orb got here, or what it really wanted. What I know is that eventually, it was activated, and that lead to this. And what it did was give you the fucking reins of my life. You finally had something to relate to, something to drive me out of control. What I had to do, what I had to think, what we ended up with… it was you. You’re the dirt. You’re all that was ever wrong with me. I don’t know where you came from, or what you are, but you’ve been there for so long. In my head, doing all this shit to me.

Rationale had sunk into the couch by that point, and was waiting for Fixer to finish.

Maybe I was insane, maybe you’re not even that at all, but I don’t care anymore. When my world fell apart, we got separated. Now I’m on my own, and now I can think without you. I can make choices without you. I can live without you. You just abuse your power because you made this world. You are nothing I want to have anything to do with. Not anymore. Not again.

Are you done?

Yes.

I have no idea how you can combine being... actually pretty close and being the biggest idiot I’ve ever seen.

Or so it thought.

Wh…

Kicking in, huh? It has to be. You have always been a little slow, Fixer. Always sitting in your corner.

He was in control. He would always be. He had an image of his own.

The Orb did not need to know of it.

And it never did.

See how selective memory works? Build up something that makes someone you don’t like look like the bad guy. Oh look at him, he’s not nice. Let’s call him names. Misrepresent proof. In the force, they could even reprimand you for that.

Fixer did not understand. Rationale just bared his teeth in the same smirking motion, although it was in no way mirthful. The unicorn grasped his head in confusion.

The memories plugged in and out madly, showing him bits and pieces. He could see them now, for worse.

Don’t think that you’re the victim here. Or, better yet, a hero. Do you know how much I had to go through to pull you here?

“Stop don’t think stop don’t think nothing is wrong”

Spoon-feed you chunks of memories so that you wouldn't turn inside out like I almost did, calm you down when you were losing it, practically tell you what to do step by step? And still you’d managed to die! Multiple times, in fact! I stuck with you through all this. I was your Rationale in this fucked up world. In this fucked up world, and in that one too.

The nonexistent ground quaked again and threw Fixer down, forcefully having his eyes look over the tainted non-walls. They blinked and stuttered with every word that Rationale said, dark scratches shuffling around, eventually forming familiar letters.

“DO NOT DISTURB”

He recognized the writing. It was barely surprising.

And do you know why? Because I’m still in charge here. I always was. What I’m in charge of is not in perfect condition, as you’d noticed. And I have a plan, which, unfortunately, involves you.

Fuck y—

I’ve had enough of this shit, FIXER. I need you here. I can’t do what I need to without you. But now, when you finally arrive, maybe slightly more intact than I hoped - kudos there - you go and say… this.

The walls blinked again, very much like a projector.

“YOU’RE THE CORRUPTION”

“ALL THAT WAS EVER WRONG”

“BECAUSE OF YOU”

He had nothing to say. He just coughed and cringed at the pain in his lungs.

Well, guess what? What you said was rather... accurate. A perfect description of YOU.

“YOU”

For all of MY life, I had to live with a nagging, whining, useless tumor in my head that kept telling me things. “This is bad, that is wrong, don’t do this, don’t do that”! The one thing that distinguished me from all those rainbow-brained morons, rational thinking - and all you ever did was punish me for it! Or, well, you tried. Oh boy, did you fucking try.

Rational thought could not have predicted it.

He awoke at the last moment, his pure conscience seeping through the cracks in the cage that the cursed Orb built for it, and screaming out as loud as it could.

How could he?

What has he done?

What was he doing?

What was he?

He looked at the world, falling apart color by color and tile by tile, and heard an endless half a dozen screams pierce his soul in their dying, vengeful agony.

He looked at himself, an obscure, towering, bipedal figure, oozing toxic gas out of the holes it would call its eyes and mouth, a body made of the blackest black that shattered all that this once-peaceful once-world once stood for. He asked himself what he was, and it answer was not a word he knew.

The perfect Orb in front of him cracked down the middle, breaking the fabric of creation in half, but he could not hear it, nor feel the bloodstained pain from the shard that went through his head.

He heard only pain and the distorted, jumbled voices that he could not longer fix. He felt only despair, sorrow and guilt.

He was supposed to be a detective. He ended up being a monster.

The whole world had gone wrong.

To err was one thing. To restore, another.

Rationale stopped to breathe, jagged, flickering vapors leaving his nostrils incoherently. Fixer, his eyes still wide open, attempted to rise and shake off what just went through his head, but that was not to be.

In familiar but less crushing fashion, his body was lifted into the air against his will, and thrown with violent force.

He was staring himself in the face, eye to single eye.

I was going to be nice about this, you know.

About what?..

The CORRUPTION. You’re the corruption. Just look down.

Fixer struggled to move, held in place and nearly choked by whichever energies Rationale employed.

Ah, right, you can’t. That’s fine, I’ll make you.

His body made an uncomfortable turn so that he was looking directly at the pool of black ichor that he had coughed up.

For all your talk of how I’m corrupted by the Orb, you certainly seem to enjoy pretending that you just have a bad case of the sniffles. Tell me something, FIXER: do you really think you’d leave without it? That it wouldn’t hang on? That it wasn’t following you in the one way it could?

The pain in Fixer’s body resurged, cutting through him with its jagged edges. Why did it have to make sense?

A parasite on a parasite.

“The Orb has been inside me. All this fucking time.”

“Genius.”

And now we’re getting it out. Because I need it to FIX all that YOU made happen.

The hollering noise of the sirens engulfed the disappearing joke of a world in metallic laughter. Her burnt out body, twisted and cracked, knocked over a table and covered her in ink, accompanying the blood nicely.

Just a little longer. Just a few seconds left until the last one bursts through and bears witness to what would be the undoing of a world gone wrong and the making of a world done right.

He exhaled a clog of smog and stepped into the shadows, discarding the last remains of his old self in a wardrobe - if only to mock the mundane world that was about to end. A snake shedding its skin. He was the serpent that ate worlds.

Her wings could already be heard flapping nearby. She was so eager to break in, stopped before by what the naive never-to-be-Princess thought would buy her time to call for pointless help. This was her time to play the hero. That is, if things this primitive grasped the concept. He no longer knew or cared.

A loud, clumsy crash that took out part of the railing signaled for the show to begin. The pieces in his chest circled around almost excitedly.

- What’s going on in here? Twi? Twi?! What has he done? How did he get in here? What the hay is happening outside?

He made special care to exclude the doomed plane from any noises he would make. The burnt out husk was neatly covered by a blanket of darkness, just waiting for the last pillar to come closer and see through it.

- Where are you? I know you’re here!

Steps banged down the stairs, coming closer to the eventual discovery.

- Do you think we are that stupid? Think you can fool us? Think we’ll believe you just “tore it to shreds”? Like I would trust you, you stupid weasel. I’ve always had my eye on you. Come out!

Not yet.

- I always knew! They just never listened! Some shamus crawls in, says he tore his own papers to shreds and forgot everything! I can’t believe they trusted you!

She was within sight now, stepping so cautiously he almost broke a laugh at how miserable it looked. These things really had no right to exist. He simply could no longer laugh.

- Come out, I know you’re here! What-

Finally.

- Wh- wh- what… what have… oh no. How… How...

The look of horror on her face and the crack of her voice quenched at least some of the hatred to the pastel-colored useless world, soon to fuel the fire of the engine.

- How can… how… No. No, no, no… I KNOW YOU’RE HERE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!

- I’ve fixed her.

- No. No, no, no no no no no no no no.

The black, foul residue from the kilometers-reaching cluttered pipes flowed, filling him to the brim with visions and ideas and toxic waste.

- And now I’ll fix you.

- No, no, no. No. You… You’re not real. You’re not real. You… you…

He rose from the ash and the grime, and inhaled the lung-rending air to exhale a breath of turpentine, sulfur and cropped black smog.

- You… you… No. No, no. No. You can’t be real.

She stuttered, lying on the ground. Her eyes had lost focus and her speech had become senseless. As the primordial dread, so clearly intricate in the network around him, engulfed her utmost being, she had served her purpose.

- Ha. Haha. N-not real. Ha, ha, hahahahahahhhhhahahahahhhh

His eyes opened, and poured through them cold electric light, signaling to the engine of deconstruction, summoning its loud siren to ring the end of the world gone wrong.

- Hahahahahahahaahahahahah, haha, haaaaahahah

The spasming shape on the floor, a tiny insignificant speck to him, was still a pillar of existence for this wretched world, coming apart at its seams. He stretched out his arm and commanded her neck to face the sharp glass, throwing the lifeless body at the door, painting a red carpet for a new age.

Now there were none.

Worthless.

He breathed in and nearly got frightened in the first waking moments, when something was amiss.

There was no pain. The Orb was gone. He was free. There was no “sickness” anymore. No wounds. No cuts. No pain.

Look at me. Focus. You still have eyes, don’t you?

There was an actual floor now, too. Fixer felt the old rug with his acheless snout.

Get up. There is no time. I NEED you now.

Fixer opened his eyes, only to feel no stinging pain and see no blur. His head no longer felt like an overweight pulsating tumor. The breathing discomfort he had become so accustomed to was gone.

His experience with all that he had encountered, however, was not gone. It was his old apartment, recreated with precision that could only be drawn from passionate love or hatred. It drifted in nowhere, the walls with the words still visible through the windows, as if to mock him if he ever were to feel at home. The odor of toxic chemicals and the roar of the metallic engine sounded ever nearer, overriding the salty smell of alcohol and the synthetic tunes of the record player in the corner. He must have been out for a while.

None of that did more than mildly surprise him.

Rationale half-floated in front of him, the familiar face still stretched in a spasming smirk. The dark hole in place of the other unicorn’s eye seemed much wronger, now that Fixer could see straight.

You always get it better than you ever should. ALWAYS. Just… get up. Clock’s ticking.

With the withdrawal of the “sickness”, it had become painfully obvious that Rationale was not a pony like Fixer. He was just shaped that way.

Worn, tortured, and hurting, Fixer never noticed the oddities in Rationale’s appearance, barring the hole. The other unicorn’s mane looked different to his, much darker and sterner, and his face was not only perpetually stretched in a disturbing smirk, but also showed severe signs of sickness. Pale and sweaty, Rationale seemed not to notice any of it - cocky, arrogant, jumpy, the doubtless corruption given form snarled at him with the voice that had been his for years. Incorporeal - partly transparent, like a projection of something much less immediately comprehensible. Not too much unlike the Errors - but still, somehow, infinitely better. And so much worse.

In any case, Rationale was nothing Fixer wanted to associate himself with. He knew the feeling was mutual.

...the fuck did you do?

Take an uneducated guess, - Rationale motioned absently to the middle of the room, where a perfect round shape floated in the air, glowing with a greyish light, - I’d rather not get into the details. Disappointingly non-gory. Hoped to rip you the fuck apart and then put you back together wrong.

The unicorn felt his skin crawl at the mere sight of it. The Orb was just as he remembered it - clearly now - but all he felt towards it was fear and hatred.

“I used to worship that freaking thing…”

Yeah, it was pitiful to watch. But... Believe it or not, it was so occupied with combing your brain that it just never noticed me. Could say that you were doing my dirty work while I snuck away and planned. I’d like that dynamic if you’d ever do anything useful again.

Fuck you.

Same to you. Good thing I don’t hold grudges. I just fix them.

Well, what’s your plan? Do we use this again? - Fixer looked at the Orb and shuddered, clenching his teeth in anger.

No, we have a tea party with the pretty bunnies. Of course we use THIS again. It’s been the whole point of your little journey. Look, FIXER… we need to work together again. One last time, perhaps. We’ve done this all our lives. We have to rely on each other. We always were the only ones.

Rationale moved towards the Orb and stood to its side, waving Fixer over. The unnatural grey light that it emanated made him want to hurl - and so did Rationale. Still, he walked up to it.

There was so much he did not want to know.

When… THIS was used, Frame Fixer was supposed to be a full entity. Full mind, full body. All taken over by the Orb itself, of course. We were never more than a means to an end. Someone it can associate with so that it can bring in… what it called HOME.

Fixer felt electricity zip through his spine at the memories of the visions it fed him. They were becoming dangerously clear. Alien creatures. Psychotic bipeds. A world full of horrors that made Equestria seem sweet in comparison.

A painful pang of guilt and sorrow stung him as he recalled the old world.

That’s what it wanted. We were never asked. Well, too bad for it, - Rationale spat out, the smirk on his face becoming eerily genuine - Because we were special, FIXER. WE were FIXER. The two of us. Two, all our lives. We were never alone. We were together the moment we crawled out of the crack and through the pool of blood. I don’t know why. Two minds. One body. Our memories. You do remember that, don’t you?

I do, - Fixer sighed.

Now… There is a fact you’ll have to come to terms with: I have always been number one. You woke up in here, and started walking and thinking and talking and remembering and whatever else - you must think you're in charge. Only you were the split personality, Fixer, just as I told you. You sat, whined, and watched. You ruined everything I tried and kept nagging my memories. Me? I did all the thinking, I made all the plans, I did every action. ME. It was ME. I was our RATIONALE. I saw that ludicrous travesty of a world for what it was. Only I couldn’t fix anything. See the irony? My name is Frame FIXER - can’t stand it now - and I can’t fix anything. I only respond, I react, and then I do paperwork - welcome to the police force! I was just a DETECTIVE in some crooked city where these pastelhides gut each other every night, and every morning, whoever survives pretends that we’re a happy candyland of sunshine and rainbows.

Fixer’s ears dropped. That explained the memories. Or, rather, he wished it did.

He knew which he shared with Rationale and which were his own.

Rationale’s smirk told him that they were about to reach the good part.

Now, you, you existed solely... to WHINE. Always in the back of MY head, complaining about everything I ever did. Best of all, you actually thought YOU were in charge. You, the weak, mumbling, awkward, depressed mess, were in charge. According to you, you BELONGED to these idiots. You just wanted to join them, hop into the background and become the useless blot that you are. And since you’d draw ME with you as well, I couldn’t allow that, so I just stuffed you as far away as I could and tried not to listen to you complain every time I’d beat some crook half to death after he already told me everything I needed to know, because FUCK them and FUCK their happy pony society that they RUIN THEMSELVES.

The room shook violently, as if it had begun to give birth. The immaterial walls scraped along the nonexistent borders, and he watched torn concepts pour into the room. Photographs had begun to bulge over the walls. Himself, his badge, him on duty. Other ponies, all so chewed up and blurred that none of their features stood out any longer. His apartment had turned into a mess of hanging pictures.

But guess what, that paid off. When we found the ORB, I was the one that drew it to us, but you were the one it took for the main part. It couldn't go back anymore, it was TRAPPED in you. Just fused into our body, shards into our flesh, realized how hopeless you were, and started making desperation plans. Never had time to look for me. It took what it had and started to turn you into what it needed. For the first time in years, you had CONTROL. I lost my strings over the puppet we shared for all those years. Naturally, the first thing you did was quit your job, go private - badly - and start drinking, moping, puking, all the good stuff. But… whatever - as long as you kept it occupied. I’d just take my entrance when it would be time to start, take it by surprise, and finally fix this stupid world. It explained enough to you for me to know how to operate it. I’m not that DUMB.

Fixer just leaned against the couch and kicked one of the many bottles on the ground, listening to what he already knew to be true, but never wanted to be so.

The plan was going so well, and at last, when it told us to start the conversion, I came in, wrestled control away, and then… YOU FUCKED IT ALL UP.

The scream that Rationale gave out pressed Fixer deep into the couch seat, leaving him with a ringing in his ears for a few minutes and little more, as by that point his fright tolerance had risen to less than sane levels.

You just decided to wake up, come out, and start WHINING into the Orb right as it was doing its work! That wasn't me, FIXER, I’m not the bad guy who killed your nice little world of colorful ponies, that was YOU. You couldn't have possibly found a worse time to play our conscience. Who gives a FUCK what we had to do to get there, just let it happen, it’s literally just a few minutes - but no, you have to ruin everything! And those nice pony ladies that you bawl over so hard that they’re FLOATING around in here, ripping reality as they go - that wasn't ME either, that was you, whether you like it or not. Your memories, your thoughts, your fantasies, you could only think about them, and this is what we've got. Errors. It’s not them anymore, it’s what you turned them into. Too bad you realized it and decided to start WHINING about it in THE WORST POSSIBLE MOMENT.

Rationale was never, not for a second, anything remotely good. Every instinct told Fixer to rebut whatever came out of his twin’s mouth, but instead, he listened. He listened and felt how dying inside feels when you no longer have pain and spasms to occupy you.

Good thing I knew that from the start. You got a crush on these morons, didn’t you? They showed kindness to you for the first time in your useless life. Boo hoo. Can’t let them die. Keep the Magic of Friendship alive. Now, though, when they were like this… I just had to point you at them, and that made you move along.

Truth really hurt.

And that’s how we got this wonderful place, which you fittingly call “WORLD GONE WRONG”. That’s the one smart thing to ever come out of you, I swear. A world that tries to piece itself part by part, drawing from disconnected MEMORIES, filled with everything that ever made you, US, feel mad. Population - six eldritch horrors and one worthless IDIOT that created them. That, and those corpse things… ugh. Myself, too, but I’ll write myself out, thank you very much. Kudos, really.

At that point, Fixer realized that the truth was pointless to argue with. What was done was done.

He did, however, have a point of his own.

So we’re just wiping it, huh? Destroying another world so that we’d get our way? “Finishing it off”?

Oh for f- Don’t tell me you have some inane reason why we have to preserve this place.

I do.

Okay, fine, shoot. Maybe it’s good for a laugh.

There are others here. These “corpse things”.

That tried to kill you - actually, did kill you - and then left you to get ripped apart by the Shadow, yes.

Fixer could faintly remember how they got the name for the tumors, which manifested themselves as messes of wires, metal and oil. The term was that of the Orb. It was what an operator from centuries ago, from a completely different world, called it. The same world this one originated from.

He did not want to access his memories anymore. Too bad that everything of worth was in them, and his current self consistent of nothing but fragments of that dreadful past. Shards of a mirror.

They don’t know any better. I made them this way. They’re… they’re my fault. I don’t care what you say about me, but they are there, and they are sentient. They have done nothing wrong. We can’t just leave th-

Yes we can. You fascinate me, honestly. How about we get those Errors of yours on it as well, hmmm? Surely they don’t know any FUCKING better!

That hit a nerve.

NO THEY DON’T! They are DIFFERENT. They HAVE to die. They are all that is wrong with this world - all worlds! They... they shouldn't be like this, we've ruined them, and now... now they are just a travesty of what they were. They need to go. I just want the worthy preserved. I don’t care how crippled they are, or what they did! If we can’t save this world, then they have to go with us! - Fixer nearly blacked out as his mind spoke for him, with little consent involved in the matter. He was losing touch with reality very, very fast.

Rationale let out a croaked laugh.

You know… You just did something almost right. You’ve proved my theory, you know. Multiple, in fact. The first one is that you’re an idiot, we’re not taking any zombie ponies with us just because they’re misunderstood.

Fixer frowned, barely suspending his anger. He decided to try and negotiate further instead.

Well, what’s the second one then? And what’d I say?

Oh, see, you’re not the same anymore, FIXER. I may actually have been a little bit wrong about you, - saying that, Rationale reached for his chest pocket.

How… so?

You’ve changed. All that you’ve gone through, it has actually changed you. My old split personality has actually picked up tricks while I was away! So much of a blank sheet, I guess some semblance of sense rubbed off on you. I doubted it would, but… it did. The FIXER I knew would never have said what you just did about those… Errors. He’d come up with some bullshit excuse not to right what is so obviously wrong. Poor little ponies that got stuffed in an existential cheesegrater. You… You just screamed at the top of your lungs about how they’re WRONG. Even when you knew what they really were, irredeemably so. And you almost made a point. They're all a part of you, remember? And I know a certain something that would have been very conveniently affected by this.

A feeling of dread came over Fixer as he watched Rationale pull out the Shard out of his pocket. The reflection in it stared right back at him with its empty eye.

This will do nicely. Even better than YOU. Just a bit of cleaning and off we go. I won't even need to go through the bother of having to see you any longer. You've brought me a good substitute. I've not been missing it... but I sure am glad it's here.

Rationale never saw how the shape of the Shard fit exactly into the hole in his face. Fixer did. In his panicking mind, a thought crossed through, but was immediately shut down:

“SHUT THE FUCK UP”

And so he did, as something much more immediately important was happening.

“I said there would be cleaning.”

The unicorn backed away, dropping off the couch and crawling back, away from what emerged in front of Rationale, who smirked still.

And things just got a whole lot easier.

Worthless.

Now it’s a win-win situation. For me. Here’s a suggestion: try to not die for as long as possible. Raises the chances of a proper CONVERSION.

He understood absolutely nothing.

It kept going. It never stopped.

He listened to the shuffling and dragging noises, the metal clunks, the cold wail of sirens.

It could never be fixed.

It worked exactly as it was intended to.

His legs carried him away against his own will. After all he had gone through, Fixer’s conscious was left devoid of many things - among them was fear of death. It was a pleasant thought, if anything, only he would never let himself end before this travesty came to a resolution. He did not truly fear anything anymore. Whether it was insanity or something beyond that was not for him to decide.

The thing that marched after him, however, instilled dread on the most primal level, forcing the unicorn’s limbs to shake in terror and scramble to get his body as far away from it as they could. That was its nature. Fear and wrongness incarnate. Little else. The Aberration was released from its prison, so sick of following him around in the piece of glass.

The monstrous shape stomped down the halls that were not there moments before, running Fixer out of breath and ideas.

“Just get rid of it. Just get rid of this thing, and get back to that fucker. Then it will all be fine. I’ll know what to do. Nothing is wrong.”

“Still alive? You may just come back in one piece at this rate. One piece of shit.”

“Fuck you. We’ll see who’ll be snarking.”

You make me laugh.

That thing talked, too. It was, perhaps, the most unnerving feature of it. A gigantic bipedal monstrosity, so utterly wrong it made anything that came in touch with it dissipate into thin air. Its face was faceless - there was little more to it than three incoherent, curved holes on a pitch black surface that rejected the light of the world gone wrong. Its voice, however, seemed to emanate from everywhere around Fixer - and that voice was his own. Chewed up, distorted, skipping pitches, but his nonetheless. To top it off, the otherworldly concoction of darkness wore his vest, visible in perfect detail over its body - all to mock him.

The Aberration had successfully come to life. The end had begun.

Too bad he had become impervious to that sort of treatment over the course of the past days.

You run. Even they didn’t run.

He did run - through the corridors, the halls, the rooms, the forests, he ran wherever. Carried by his panicking body, he galloped through the world gone wrong as it sung its agonizing death rattle.

Trees, furniture and pieces of the sky made up the walls, the floor was a swirling cosmic mixture of colors and concepts. Auxillary shapes, no longer recognizable as anything at all, littered the evaporating halls. Sometimes, he would run through familiar places - parts of the precinct, the fake forest, even pieces of the castle and the library. They were more solid than the rest of the world, but still, the end was theirs as well. Somewhere in the distance, Fixer could hear the Errors scream in their distorted voices as the wave of destruction reached them too. The Aberration, the toxic, metal tumors of the Orb’s guardian on the other.

Fixer fit right in the middle, and rushed on to nowhere he knew.

This is pathetic.

As he was beginning to consider ways to get back to wherever Rationale was when the Aberration was unleashed, a quake rammed through him. The body took care of the imminent fall, getting back up quickly and continuing to utilize what little stamina remained, but the mind was confused.

Fixer heard Rationale scream.

“What the fuck is going on in there?”

His answer was more twisted corridors, more insults from the Aberration, and another scream. This time, as it died out, it turned to laughter.

In that moment, Fixer felt something strange. As his body rammed through nonsensical vistas, chased by an abomination from outer worlds, he suddenly felt himself touching something round and cold with his hooves. He leaned onto it and felt his face stretch out in a painful smirk.

He did not do any of that.

“Rationale? Rationale, stop whatever the fuck it is that you’re doing. Rationale, STOP.”

The Orb was in use. He could not forget the feeling.

You will comply.

The body and the chase became secondary concerns. Fixer evaded the Aberration thus far, and as such would do fine enough on auto-pilot until something would happen and take it away - the matter was not for him to decide.

What he felt was happening somewhere else was a lot worse.

“I… I… I fucked up.”

Before the unicorn could offer any fully formed thought in response, myriads of sounds filled his head as Rationale’s voice cracked in a maddened scream. He just exposed himself. The infection persevered.

However horrible a world of Rationale would have been, now it had become all so much worse.

“I HAVE SEEN BILLIONS OF YEARS PASS SO THAT NOTHING MAY CHANGE”

Another quake.

“Rationale? Rationale, what are you DOING?”

“I HAVE STOOD UNDER THE SCOURING SUN, AND ORDERED THAT WHICH WAS NEVER THERE TO BE BROUGHT BEFORE ME”

Fixer’s eyes gave out for a second, cutting to something he could not hope to understand.

“I’m coming. All heavens help me, I’m coming.”

“I HAVE MOUNTED THE IRON STEED AND VIOLATED THE ESSENCE OF THE VERY EARTH”

“I HAVE LOOKED THROUGH THE SCOPE, AND PULLED THE TRIGGER TO SCARE A NATION INTO SUBMISSION”

“I HAVE WATCHED A UNION DIE, AND I TOO TOOK A BITE OF THE STILL WARM FLESH”

Your time is up.

“I HAVE PUT WORDS INTO THE MOUTHS OF THE GREAT, AND MADE THEM CHOKE ON THEIR TESTIMONY”

“I HAVE SWAM THROUGH THE SEAS OF BLACK, AND WATCHED THOUSANDS KILL FOR THE POISON”

“I HAVE SAT DOWN WITH HUNDREDS, AND FELL FROM THE SKIES TO THE WHIMS OF DOZENS”

“I HAVE SEEN TWIN TOWERS FALL, AND EMERGED FROM THE RUBBLE, SO THAT NO DEED BE FORGOTTEN”

I have you.

“I HAVE NEVER WANTED THIS. I WANT IT TO STOP, BUT IT NEVER WILL. I WANT IT TO BE FIXED, BUT IT NEVER WILL.”

“No.”

“EVERYTHING IS FINE. NOTHING IS WRONG.”

“I NEED YOU.”

I will enjoy th-

Author's Note

Tune in next time for the ending if your brain is still intact.

Eventuality | Normality | Duality

“THE END IS HERE.”

A collective piercing scream, coupled with yet another heavy quake, threw Fixer out of his visions and right onto what could loosely be called the floor. He took precious time to recover from what he had just seen, the traumatizing images and thoughts sorted out in the ever growing portion of his mind. He had no time to waste. The end was there.

The world around him swirled and cried as corruption engulfed it, choking on its own liquefied insides, begging to be finished. The familiar sentiment resonated within the unicorn, and pushed him to get up to see what has happened. He needed an escape plan, and a route to Rationale.

It was only then that he had remembered about the Aberration that had chased him to that point.

It was screaming. Its scream was not something a creature like that would make.

GET OFF, YOU LITTLE-

The screams came from below - Fixer could not say more, as he had forgone any assessment of the surroundings, dismissing any shapes and textures as meaningless. He had to save what little sanity remained for when it mattered. For what it was worth, the surface felt cool and flat, like glass.

HOW CAN YOU?..

The dismissal of his surroundings cost Fixer. Trying to look in the direction where the thing must have been, he ended up vaulting over and crashing many meters down, as the fleeting floors gave way under the overwhelming noise. The fall should have killed him, but he barely felt any impact.

What he arrived to was an unlikely scenario to say the least.

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE, I AM-

His corruption vaporized matter at the touch of a claw and called on the coming dissolution. It was a passing thought from a much darker realm, but still enough to devour all that was ever good about what he knew.

The Aberration was writhing in agony and limping in circles, thrashing violently to throw off tens of miniature figures that clung to it.

Detective.

NO

How… the…

De- tec- tive!

Fixer simply stared for a short while. The distorted, towering figure screamed in agony as its purely immaterial, poisonous, wretched, wrong body was kicked, chewed and impaled by awkward creatures that could at best be described as miserable. Their shambling attacks never collided with the thick, blackened body, but nevertheless, the monster wailed in pain. It screamed as if it was being burned alive. The Victims, however, did not seem to mind being in direct proximity to something that undeniably foul.

To fit with Fixer’s thoughts, the surroundings changed accordingly and etched numerous question marks onto themselves.

De… tec… tive.

The many Victims had caught the thing that could not be. They brought it to its knees, wailing and bleeding. No eyes to see. No guilt to understand.

One had eyes, though. She looked directly at him.

Detective.

He looked back. Then, at the Aberration,

It’s all going to be over soon.

Detective.

He understood something important.

I WON’T BE DENIED

Walking up to the straddled, distorted giant, held down by the small, mangled bodies, he went through all the rage and pain that he had caused.

For so long, he considered himself to be good. Normal. Responsible. It would be so convenient to blame Rationale for all he had done. It would be so convenient to blame this for what he had done.

It was, in the end, something that his own hatred had given birth to. He had lived for so little, but he had accumulated more than was enough. More than any of his kind ever should have.

He thought he knew which was right and which was wrong. In the end… it was all obsolete.

YOU DON’T DARE

The Shard and its Aberration had haunted him for so long. The easy way out. Accept no wrongness on your part and do as you wish with no regard for the rest. Murder. Destroy. Fix. His dream, his ultimate desire. He wanted to make things better. That would never excuse what he had done.

Even now, it did the same. Drove him to push the blame on others. Blind himself. Become what he did become all times too often whenever the Shard crossed him. When it appeared ever so conveniently and offered an easy way, a better path, a route of chaos and madness. To fix that which was so indubitably erred.

De… tec… tive?

Rationale never saw it. Himself for so long. Ultimately, he was the opposite, and yet the same. To him, all things were black and white - with him as the only representative of the latter. It made things easier. Easier to break down, deduce and conclude. Rational thought of his chosen kind. As long as it never put his own actions under question. Rationale would ignore that his other self bore murderous intent and hatred all along, such positive qualities in his twisted mind. He would assume to be superior and control the Orb, when in reality, reality itself had begun to flee. He would miss a hole in his own face to point out all that was wrong with the world.

Even if Rationale was right, that was not how Fixer would do things. Even if Fixer had only been a speck in the mind of Rationale’s for all these years.

He stared right into the cold, brightly radiating “eyes” of the Aberration that no longer threatened to diffuse him with a single touch. The etchings on the walls had turned into pictures of expanding, looming mushroom-shaped clouds.

He knew what to do with it.

Welcome to Hell.

With a roar full of anguish and pain, Fixer stabbed it with his horn as hard as he possibly could, opening for it a path back to himself. They had to be complete, and they would be, whether he liked it or not. There was enough strength in him to suppress it.

For now.

- Shut up.

“Look who’s talking.”

- I said shut up.

“I’m not doing anything. It’s you.”

- I said, SHUT UP.

“It’s always just you.”

- Who?

“Does it matter?”

- No.

The rough salty liquid burned his throat once more, and pushed him to lean on the pulsating flesh that had by then nearly consumed the apartment. He stared at the mare in the moon and spat at her, his blackened spit barely landing a few meters off from him.

He never heard from him again. Not till the end.

He did not mind.

Detective.

Breathing through clenched teeth, Fixer looked at the Victim leader, who had walked up to him, her cut throat gaping in the lifeless light.

I know.

Detective.

Are you… sure?

He was not.

He looked at all the walking corpses that he had made out of guilt. They stared at him eyeless, twitching in place and wheezing. Still shaking after the absorption, he felt almost as if the Orb was back within him, punishing him for all he had done. Somewhat fairly so. Their missing eyes, however, radiated the same reverence as before.

That felt unfair. They never had to have done any of that. And they never had to do this.

Detective, - the mare shook her head in rigid fashion, and looked behind Fixer, at the crowd of her followers.

De- tec- tive.

De… tec… tive?

I have failed you.

Detective.

I wish I could make it up… but I know I won’t.

The Victim leader took a stifled breath, looking Fixer in the eyes. Hers were dead and never blinking, but he understood nonetheless.

She took out a glass shard, and sliced her throat.

A collective thud behind him confirmed that the rest did the same.

They did not want to weigh him down. They knew what would happen. They understood.

I’m sorry. I’m so proud of you.

He looked at the reflections and watched the tears drop down on the mirrors below him. He knew what to do now. There was little time, but it would be enough.

Fixer looked up in the mirror to take one last look at his face, if only to reassure himself, and felt a lightning bolt strike down his spine.

No. Wait a fuck… no. What-

His heart raced. He stammered and nearly tripped over his collection of sacrifices, wishing to escape the image, but there was no way.

The mirrors were everywhere. Everything was a mirror. They stared back at him, blank and confused.

That’s not me. That’s… that’s not me.

Fixer knew something was horribly wrong when he realized what was making him feel afraid. Something as simple as the mirrors not showing him as he was. He knew for a dead, cold, fact, that nothing of this sort could hope to surprise him. His sanity was living on borrowed time, yes, but it had not gone out yet - he had adapted and took the impossibilities for granted.

He should not have been so scared.

Who the… Who are you? Why are you not answering?

The reflection did not move. He wanted to run from it, but as he turned around, everything had become a mirror. All had turned into reflective glass, and all the glass was staring at him, drilling into the parts of his memory that emitted gut-retching sounds beyond definition.

He had been running for so long, he had gotten so far. He could not let this stop him. He was close. He could not let it.

He tried to imagine that it was not there, just rush through the solid glass walls and on to wherever Rationale may have been. It was all the more painful a realization when the unexpected happened, and he crashed right into one of the mirrors, marking it with a web of cracks. That was not to be considered normal.

Why now? Why now of all times? What the fuck do you need?

“Remember.”

What?

He was talking to himself.

“One who wants to remember the world into being can never do so when he does not remember himself.”

The f-

He was definitely talking to himself. Rationale’s voice was different, a lower tonality, a more urban accent, forming out of nowhere, only there for him to accept it. This he knew he was thinking up himself.

His mind had gone up in mutiny.

“Look at yourself.”

I d-

“Straight ahead.”

He did. He looked at the one cracked mirror in a myriad of those intact, and felt his teeth grind together painfully as the picture sunk into his mind.

“Diamond in the rough.”

Light grey eyes. Confused. Dark hazel coat. Smooth. Dark br-

“Remember?”

Lightning-blue mane. Unmade. Short. Perked snout. Smooth. No scars.

Flank.

How could I have forgotten.

Cracked pocket mirror.

How could they do this to him. He loved them so much, and now they were gone.

Oh, sweet merciful FUCK, what have you DONE?!

- I- I- I overreacted, okay!?

How could they do this to him. He has never done anything to them. He has never done anything to anyone. Nothing that he meant. He loved them so much.

- Okay, explain to me, how the HELL are we supposed to explain this to the boss? Huh?

- I, I don’t know, maybe they slipped or somth-

This was a nice, kind world. Everyone was nice. He has never done anything to them. He loved them so much. Everything was fine.

- Right, sure. They fucking slipped, right into the fucking glass with their fucking throats. You’re a fucking genius. Fuck.

- Hey, watch the language!

- Go fuck yourself! We were explicitly told to SCARE them, you diamond in the fucking rough, S-C-A-R-E. They can’t pay the fucking debt when they’re DEAD!

- I said I overreacted!

He just got his cutiemark a few days ago. One of Dad’s mirrors broke, and he put it back together. He was going to continue the family tradition. They said he had a good eye for detail. Everything was fine.

- Oh, dear heavens, you’re a huge error of nature. Why do you DO this to me…

Look, can we get out of here? I’m feeling kinda weird with all these mirrors around. Why do they even need so many?

It’s a mirror shop, dumbass, what do you expect? Lamps and vests? Quills and sofas?

This was a nice world. It has always been. He loved them so much.

Gah, hell… We need to clean this mess up. Drag these… unfortunates out, drown them in the river. Gives us some time before their kid comes back and finds out noone’s home.

They have a kid?!

Yeah, what’s so special?

That’s… that’s fucked up. I mean, I just… I just offed his fucking folks, that’s fucked up.

You know, I’ll never understand what your rationale was when you signed up.

I thought we’d get to fix stuff… Like, you know…

Shut up, I’m getting dumber by just listening to you. Just… don’t worry, we’ll fix everything. It’ll be fine. Don’t— Don’t you start puking just yet.

Yeah… they’re fixed now.

And now they were gone.

They shuffled and dragged. The red trails followed them and he did not want them to go. It was so cold.

He sat paralyzed, staring into nothing through the small crack. He could not move. He could not cry. He could not understand. He could only think.

“Nothing is wrong.”

The whole world had gone wrong.

“Not really. That’s how it’s always been.”

He could not understand.

“Well, that’s because you’re an idiot for ever believing their lies. Nothing was ever good. You know that. You just see it now.”

An uncontrollable, twitching smirk stretched his lips out.

“Don’t worry now. It’s all going to be fine. We’ll fix everything. We know what to do. We’ll be a fixer. Think rationally. No more games. We’ll go somewhere where we’ll get to fix things. We’ll sign up and everything will be fine. They won’t be able to tell. We’ll work as a team. Nothing is wrong.”

“Where are they?”

“They’re alright. They’re fixed now.”

“Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong.”

He crawled through the crack in the wardrobe, sat there before like a broken puppet, and into the red pool.

Mirror Mender was no more.

I…

He stood static, staring at himself.

I’m… I’m…

At one point, he had finally begun to breathe again.

Fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

The Shadow’s roar of hunger woke him into action, bringing what little was able to recover into motion. The first thing he did was frantically check his mane, nearly plucking out a piece, and look at his flank.

The room shook and contorted in a stuttering flash as Fixer half-sobbed, half-laughed.

Dyed brown. Lightning-blue roots. Cracked pocket mirror.

How could he never have checked.

His legs nearly crumbled under his insignificant weight, but somehow he had managed to keep himself straight.

This is wrong. This is all so wrong.

There was just a bit left to go.

Oh, this is all so fucked. How could I… how… Why?..

Fixer limped ahead.

The world gone wrong had undergone what had to have been its last transfusion. He could see Rationale in the distance, covered in what must have been blood, slouching against a miniature pyramid-like structure that Fixer had never seen before, and never cared to find out what it was. The blasted Orb floated on top of it, radiating cold electric light and spouting distorted imagery that would flood the horizon every half a second, before fading into the familiar black and white flickering layers.

I’m so dumb. All of me. Me and you, we’re both idiots, Fixer. Just what the hell were we trying to accomplish?..

Fuck you too.

All around them, nothing was making sense.

It was a crater-littered, blazing hot battlefield, freakishly painted as if it had been bombarded by a squadron of multicolored blood-filled dirigibles. It contained itself within a small portion of Fixer’s coffee table inside his apartment, which loomed gigantic all around them. In the corner of his eye, the unicorn could see six ponnequins stare at him from the dark, even though everything was so brightly lit his eyes hurt. To the sides of the pyramid, two poles with rusty chains on them upheld a sign that read “Hall of Fame”.

It did not have to make sense.

You know… You know, I just… I fucked up. How could I fuck up so hard. Just… how. I thought I knew everything. Knew what to do. Had aces up my sleeves.

And look how much good it did you.

Rationale was lying completely static, his immaterial body twisted and staring into the ceiling. It flickered as he spoke.

I’ve played my cards. I LOST. I… I just never thought it’d be like this. That it would… that it would… overcome me. Like it did you. I… I saw all those things, Fixer. All those things. I’ve been to its home, Fixer.

The Shard-shaped hole in his face was still there, completely blank even as he flickered.

I… We know right from wrong, don’t we, Fixer? Fixer. Rationale. Someone who fixes things that are wrong. Someone who pushes ahead to find things that are right. We know it, don’t we? We know wrong when we see it, do we?

Fixer stopped in front of Rationale, staring him in the eye despite knowing that it was pointless.

We don’t. I thought we did. Equestria with its rainbow politics and senseless utopia… It was all so putrid and vile, wasn’t it? I hated it so much. I know you did, too, even when they pretended that you were important. It was such a shithole, Fixer. But now I’ve seen it. I’ve seen its home. We don’t know from wrong. It’s not like I imagined. I don’t want this anymore. You go and do WHATEVER you want. I’m out of moves.

And he cared about precisely nothing that Rationale thought. He knew it all so much better than his supposedly dominant half.

In all this, the one thing that was inmendably wrong was that which was thinking these thoughts.

I need you to answer a few questions.

You never wanted to listen. And I don’t get a choice. What a healthy relationship we have.

What’s your flankmark?

Pardon me?

What’s your fucking flankmark?

It’s a looking glass, Fixer. Fancy-looking, rectangular frame. With a crack on it. I have no idea why you’re asking. Typical detective flankmark, NOTHING special.

Is there anything wrong with your face?

He would never remember that he was missing anything. In his mind, he never was… what he was. Rationale was born without the knowledge Fixer now had about their nature. That was the hole. A literal hole in his brain. And the Shard was all that would go wrong if you put it in.

Look, I- You know what, fuck it, I don’t care why you’re asking this. NOTHING IS WRONG with my face. Or did you only now realize that the body we share is no Neon Lights? Shouldn’t have gotten shitfaced so much th—

I’ve heard enough.

He scowled and stabbed the projection of Rationale with the shard from the mirror that showed him everything.

Frame Fixer was finally complete. All three broken parts of a soul that corrupted mirrors that dared reflect it.

An unbelievably loud screech that turned into a scream sounded off, first outside, and then inside. Nearly out of breath and time both, Fixer turned to the Orb. The guardian roared again. It was close.

“WHAT THE F-”

Want to do something good for once in your life?

“Nothing is wrong.”

Snap the fuck out of it and answer. I just need one thing from you. I’ll do everything else myself.

“Fuck my shit fuck my shit fuck my shit fuck my shit.”

I’m going to start losing it very soon. And we can’t have that. Hell knows what’ll happen.

“...”

Hold it off as long as you can, and try not to disturb me. Everything will be fine.

“Not.”

Then it’s a deal.

“Wait… what are you going to do?”

The right thing. You don’t get to complain.

He took a deep breath and touched the Orb, feeling his legs lose contact with reality and turn immaterial.

Focus. Control.

Template. Back.

“This is stupid. You know it. I know you know it. I saw it in you. Why are you doing this?”

“You don’t get to decide. It’s working as intended. It has ALL been working as intended. You just decided you knew better.”

Conversion. Back.

“It’s ugly, it’s nowhere near as pretty as it paints itself to be, but we don’t get to destroy it just because we don’t like it. It’s not broken. It’s what it is. It’s not our world, it never was. It fit them. Not us.”

“It is all so ugly. We can just make one of our own, Fixer. We still can. We can escape this rainbow fantasy and avoid the engine of death, we can—”

“And I don’t have enough time or skill to do anything else. I've tried to fix something that wasn't broken and tore it all to shreds.”

Infraction. Ignore.

Fuel consumption. Start.

“We can be gods, Fixer. We can be our own gods. They don’t like gods in there, and you know what we are now, Fixer. You can’t seriously be going there again. It’s hopeless. We can’t go there.”

“Fixer isn't going anywhere.”

“What??? You—”

“why”

“Oh. Oh, fuck me, it’s starting. I… I... I hate you. Oh, heavens help me, I hate you so much. And you know what?”

Template. Confirmed.

“I… I am your Rationale. I have always been. We… we work as a team, don’t we, Frame Fixer? I’ll do this one. I’ll keep your marbles in. You’d better be grateful for that.”

Adaptation discrepancy. Load.

“Good luck.”

“It’s been nice knowing you.”

“Until next.”

Infraction. Ignore.

Fuel consumption. Complete.

Conversion. Start.

Rational thought could not have predicted it.

He awoke at the last moment, his pure conscience seeping through the cracks in the cage that the cursed Orb built for it, and screaming out as loud as it could.

How could he?

What has he done?

What was he doing?

What was he?

He looked at the world, falling apart color by color and tile by tile, and heard millions of screams pierce his soul in their dying, vengeful agony.

He looked at himself, an obscure, towering, bipedal figure, oozing toxic gas out of the holes it would call its eyes and mouth, a body made of the blackest black that shattered all that this once-peaceful once-world once stood for. He could not feel it. He only felt his mangled own.

The perfect Orb in front of him cracked down the middle, breaking the fabric of creation in half, but he could not hear it, nor feel the bloodstained pain from the shard that went through his head.

He heard only pain and the distorted, jumbled voices that he could not longer fix. He felt only despair, sorrow and guilt.

He was supposed to be a detective. He ended up being a monster.

He looked at it all from both the impossible eyes and the dead gaze from the wardrobe, discarded there by that which killed all that existed in his world.

The whole world had gone wrong.

His chest was about to burst, the intricate web of veins and organs engulfed in a pure radiance of unstoppable dissolution. His lungs were aflame, threatening to burn the flesh and rip the coat. He fled, he fled as far as he could, as far as his worthless being would carry him. His mind was like a pincushion - soft, yet laced with needles. He coughed out blood as his muscles strained, frictional between the unstoppable force that tore him from inside and the immovable object of the outside reality. His limbs felt like they were being turned inside and out, stretched and shrunk and again and again. Sweat matted his coat and mane, clinging to his body like a new layer of skin, as if to replace the one that burned and rippled, but would not come off.

It could no longer be mended. It was wrong. “Wrong, wrong, wrong”, he kept hearing it in his head. A broken, dissonant, screeching voice yelled the word at him. It was wrong. He thought it had silenced, but still it screamed. Half a dozen blood-curdling, existence-defying voices, laughed at him in their wails… They were wrong. Errors, misactions, wrongdoings, they did not belong. They could not. He only did what he had to, and now he no longer had a place there, where everything was wrong.

The thumping of blood in his ears obscured the sounds that chased him out of his own broken existence. Darkness dawned on his vision; his legs shook spasmodically. With a crude exhale, he gave up, his head meeting surface. He was not wrong: he could not be. If he was, his whole reality would not take it. Not as a matter of pride or sanity anymore - existence itself would have fallen apart if what he had done was wrong. But he could no longer fight. He felt his body giving way to gleaming thoughtlessness. So calming before. So terrifying now.

He had no other choice but to embrace it.

It was wrong. Grey and dead, it devoured all thought and matter, erasing that which once was.

And it had come for him.

He only wanted to sleep.

De… tec… tive?

…

home?

…

…

why

…

…

WHY

…

Hello? Hello, Mister, can you hear me?

So long.

Oh dear goodness, he’s conscious again.

Blank.

Please, can you take care of him for just a minute? I have to run and get Tenderheart.

B-but...

Dry.

Please understand, he would only move when you were nearby. None of us know what happened to him, or the others. As far as we know, you are the only thing that is keeping him afloat. Just look after him for a minute, alright? Just talk to him.

Breath. Light. Warm.

Something… warm.

Umm… hello. I… I don’t know if you remember… or understand…

He did.

It hurt to nod. He had been lying still for so long.

Oh. You… you’re at a hospital. We found you passed out at… at my doorstep. You were very, very sick. It’s… it’s been about three weeks since you last woke up. The doctors said it was a very bad fever. You… almost died. You’re better now, don’t worry.

Her voice was comforting.

His memory was blank.

And, um… we don’t know who you are, where you came from, or why you came here. Everyone has been on edge ever since… It’s… It’s been very hard on all of us.

He had not opened his eyes in so long, he could barely see a thing.

I, uh… I've been helping the doctors with you. My friends are suspicious about you, but I… I have a good feeling about you. You, um… you can trust me. My name is Fluttershy. Do you remember yours?

Did he?

He did.

I…

That was the one thing he remembered.

My name is Mirror Mender.

Never remember me.

“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.” - G. O.

World Gone Wrong

Author's Note

Medium Light or Ultra Dark ars the most optimal lighting modes (readers on Dark are going to have problems later down the line - sorry, nothing I could do, aside from drop the artsy angle - Ultra Dark is somehow better).

I apologize in advance for the use of dashes to indicate directly spoken lines, which conflicts with quotation marks for inner monologue. It was the only way. I promise that when/if I write other stories, I will use the good old quotation marks. This one is just special in a particular way.

World Gone Wrong

”Beware lest you lose your substance by grasping at the shadow.” - A.

The whole world had gone wrong.

His chest was about to burst, the intricate web of veins and organs engulfed in a pure radiance of unstoppable dissolution. His lungs were aflame, threatening to burn the flesh and rip the coat. He fled, he fled as far as he could, as far as his worthless being would carry him. His mind was like a pincushion - soft, stabbed with needles. He coughed out blood as his muscles strained, frictional between the unstoppable force that tore him from inside and the immovable object of the outside reality. His limbs felt like they were being turned inside and out, stretched and shrunk again, and again. Sweat matted his coat and mane, clinging to his body like a new layer of skin, as if to replace the one that burned and rippled, but would not come off.

It could no longer be mended. It was wrong. “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” he kept hearing it in his head. A broken, dissonant, screeching voice yelled the word at him. It was wrong. He thought it silenced, but still it screamed. Half a dozen blood-curdling, existence-defying voices, laughed at him in their wails… They were wrong. Errors, misactions, wrongdoings, they did not belong. They could not. He only did what he had to, and now he no longer had a place there, where everything was wrong.

The thumping of blood in his ears obscured the sounds that chased him out of his own broken existence. Darkness dawned on his vision; his legs shook spasmodically. With a crude exhale, he gave up, his head meeting surface. He was not wrong: he could not be. If he was, his whole reality would not take it. Not a matter of sanity or pride anymore - existence itself would have fallen apart if what he did was wrong. But he could no longer fight. He felt his body giving way to gleaming thoughtlessness. So calming before. So terrifying now.

He had no other choice but to embrace it.

It was wrong. Grey and dead, it devoured all thought and matter, erasing that which once was.

And it had come for him.

- De… tec… tive?

“De… tec… tive…”

A gasp and a stifled shriek brought him to consciousness. Still in panic, he sprang up, tumbling onto the wooden floor. His head and legs ached from the impact, though perhaps for the better - actual pain washed over waves of phantom pain, bringing at least some clarity back.

He attempted to open his eyes and quickly regretted that decision - not only was the dimly lit room too bright for his eyes, but absolutely everything was spinning. With strained breath, he helped himself up, supported by what seemed to be a bed, at least judging by the texture and the cold iron frame. He made haphazard guesses, a dozen at a time, swirling in the dull tornado of his mind.

Now standing up, he turned away from the light and tried to open his eyes again. This time it was much more of a success - fighting off the dizziness, he had managed to keep them open. That way he finally saw what he fell from, and indeed, it was a bed. Not a normal bed, though - a hospital bed. A blanket was covering it, but not fully, as evidently he had knocked some of it off in his waking up. Letting out a muffled grunt, he leaned on the small chest that stood next to the bed, a wave of weakness briefly taking over his body. He had to think.

Thinking, however, was difficult - thoughts crept and crawled like roaches in a room where the lights suddenly went on.

“Hospital bed… No equipment nearby, though. Room’s far too big to be a hospital room, no, definitely not a hospital… wooden floors, high ceiling, the bed placement is off, the walls are far too far off. Where am I?”

He looked around, shielding his eyes this time, trying to scan the room for more. It was a pretty big one - perhaps even a whole building. Around him, walls were stacked with bookshelves, all of them full of books - dusty books, clearly not well taken care of in the past couple of months or so. The dim light came through the blurry windows, coming down on the floor in sharp rays.

“If not a hospital, then what? I’m feeling like death, there’s that, would make sense for me to be in one. Head’s like mashed potatoes. Something has got to be wrong. Where is everything?.. ”

A stairwell to the left lead to another floor - probably the private quarters, most likely the librarian’s, whose desk was the only other item of furniture in the room, his bed aside. It was tumbled over near the entrance and covered in ink, an inkwell’s remains visible not far from it. Finally, right behind him was a big featureless wooden bust with a dent and some darkened blood marks. He wondered what had to have hit it so hard as to leave a dent - not a big one, but still.

“Has to be a library of some sort. Abandoned, though… clearly nobody’s visited in weeks. Dust everywhere, but not on the bed. Brought me in with it? Why take the bed, though? What is going on? And wh-

“NOTHING IS WRONG”

He nearly fell down, yelping in pain as a hot poker went right into his head, burning images into his eyes, but burning so bright he could not see them. Fortunately, it only lasted a couple of seconds and left him conscious. It also left him with a new unsettling discovery.

He did not know who he was.

A more thorough search of the floor he was on did not yield a lot of results. For starters, the entrance was blocked dead - he had no idea what could be outside that could be so hard on the door. It was not locked - there was no way, the lock was plain torn out - but it would not budge.

“This is wrong. Makes no sense. Has to be like a huge rock behind it. Who needs me here so much? Why take the bed here? Was I taken from somewhere? Why is it so hard to think?..”

The books were your generic tomes of history, old novels, schoolbooks and everything else you would find in a library. If there was anything they told him, it was that he knew how to find a book switch (the book would need to look like the pages are glued together and feel more solid to the touch), of which there were none. He also knew how to find hidden compartments in walls - in fact, there actually was one, near the stairwell, though empty at that. The chest near his bed was not much of a discovery, either, though it also indirectly told him that he was a unicorn - a reflex made him telekinetically shake the thing to check if it was rigged to blow or do anything of the like. It was completely empty, but at least now he knew why exactly his head was aching that hard, owing to the extension.

“Maybe it was something else. I can’t be in good health, whatever caused the amnesia had to have happened a short while ago. Head’s hurting like I hit it recently… repeatedly… and hard… Picked me up roughed, carried to an abandoned library, then set up a bed?”

Finally, a wardrobe in a darker part of the library held a lot of dust and some clothes - relatively clean clothes, too. The dust on them was fresh, the dust never had the time to clog all the spaces where the threads connected. To be precise, it was a dark brown sleeveless stitched vest with several cuts on it. Proper and sturdy, it looked like a part of a uniform. It was only logical that he was the owner, as it could not have been in the wardrobe for long. An added argument was that the thought about the uniform made pictures sear before his eyes yet again. Looking at it hurt his head, bringing in another wave of dizziness. The assumption was cemented.

“And then what, blocked the entrance? Unless they’re really good ports and just got me through like that, but that’s unlikely… ”

Having shaken the dust off and done a check-up on important or dangerous items, finally putting it on after that fruitless effort, he also realized one other thing - a basic, one would think, but something that he had glanced over in the spur of the moment - he was brown. Light brown. It would have been funny if his aching head would allow him to think that.

“Whatever the case, they’ve left now. Or they’re really silent. Actually…”

Hello? Anyone there?

No response. In frankness, he should have done that when he just woke up, but the more investigative part of his mind evidently had a tendency of overlooking obvious things.

Anyone brought me here, by any chance? No?

Just a faint echo, part in the building and part in his head, aching off his skull. At least now it was clear that this floor and the section above were all there was to the library. The echo would have been at least slightly different if there were more rooms.

“Doesn't say much yet. May still be someone upstairs. Just be cautious. This isn't good... not even the best case scenario.”

That had to be it for the ground floor. Having checked one last time and found out that there was nothing hidden in the bed linens or the pillow, he headed upwards, cautiously knocking on the sides and steps every now and then, using a particularly big book from one of the shelves. That was to identify if there was anything else hidden in the walls, or if the steps were faulty. It floated in the air, surrounded by a light bluish-white aura.

Alas, no danger was to be found, as on the upper floor he only found a huge open window, a balcony entrance, a proper bed and a couple more bookshelves. Additionally there was a gaping void near the bed - it was clear that a table stood there before, it even left marks in the dust, but rather recently went missing. Violently so, judging by the dents on the railing right next to where it stood. It seemed that he had just missed the action.

The balcony entrance showed even more signs of things having gone wrong - it was boarded up, from the outside, no less. The glass looked shattered and the door was not in the best of conditions - going through any of that was not an option, he was not even sure if he could bash through it all with what little strength he had. On the other side, the big window looked rather shoddy - like it was, with great effort, closed after something had probably crashed into it. Its frame seemed barely intact, and it appeared like it would swing open at a light touch.

He looked around once more to see if he had missed anything. The shelves were as dull as the ones downstairs - less book-filled but lacking anything that you could not find on the lower floor. The bed was a normal kingsize with a rather large woven pet basket next to it. Dust was, as before, in full reign. Having checked everything and opened the drawers by the bed only to find a supply of quills and paper, he had concluded that nothing else was to be found.

Alright then, I’m leaving. Anyone want to show themselves, they do it now, - he said, fully realizing that he was talking to himself.

A prod of a hoof sent the dusty, blurry window creaking open, and brought about something very unpleasant. Something very wrong.

Behind the window, there was only greyness. Like the thickest fog, the plainest wall imaginable, but even more grey than that. It did not feel right. There was no wind, either. Absolutely no motions of air. Like if outside there was but a coat of grey paint, only paint would have been more… real? It was very, very, very wrong.

That was not all - something had started to change with it. His vision had begun to swirl and blur. A small pattern of colors he could not quite describe emerged. It was not.

“NOTHING”

He yelled out in pain as mind refused to process what he was seeing, it was

“IS”

wrong

“WRONG?”

There was no more breath left in his lungs, he only stared ahead, trying to remain conscious.

Who DO YOU THInk we are we are ARE?

He could not see anymore, he just felt. His lungs burned, his legs folded onto themselves. A gust of distorted wind blew right into his face. A ramming force hit him in the chest and sent him flying on the other floor.

why YOU who are you?

He could see, his sight spinning and screaming. He just did not want to see what he saw. The empty noise he woke up with in his head began to take over again.

speak say TELL ME who speak SENT? - WHO?

The memories burned bright again, a kaleidoscope of visions that hurt to think of. He could not see them. Even if he wanted to.

“Nothing is wrong.”

He was slipping again to thoughtlessness. The world went dark, not that he could notice. He only saw an Error.

“Fixed everything.”

The road was long and hard. The distant lights of the small town were a sight for sore eyes - and the eyes were sore enough, as the spores and the stinging weeds, omnipresent in the blasted forest, were all too eager to stick and swing at him.

“Where…”

It was getting hard to breathe. Watching the shapes of the small houses in the distance grow negligibly with each step, he was no longer sure if he felt sick because of the ridiculously bright colors on them or because of the trip through the forest that he had to take. Some shortcut. It defied expectation, that was for sure.

“...are they?..”

He became convinced that something was definitely wrong. It was as if his lungs were filled with slime, causing him to cough violently. While it probably was not a lethal infection, it was an infection nonetheless, it had to be. He lifted a letter from the bag and ran through the contents again. Then, he tore it to shreds. The same fate awaited a number of other papers. He only left photographs.

“They’re… alright…”

A small cottage on a hill, with some livestock kept nearby, was the closest. He stopped for a second in realization, and a pained sigh of relief left him. As much as the damned infection was becoming a problem, it was going to pay dividends in the end. He no longer had to worry about integration. His only immediate worries were getting to the door and not being contagious. That would not be very courteous to his future host.

“…They’re fixed now.”

He felt horrible. That was a surprise. He did not expect to feel anything at all.

As his mind swirled, turning into a blank abyss, he simply conceded to the fact that it was the end of him. It was plain and simple - his mind was unraveling. Violently thrown on the floor, he was also probably subject to more than a few injures, some of them possibly fatal. But here he was, lying on his back, feeling the sticky wooden floor with his aching, yet wholly intact bones.

“Possibly a death dream. Yes, most likely. Not particularly flashy, but I suppose I have my subconscious to fault for that.”

As his thoughts slowly collided one into another and formed something that could be called a train of thought, he was reminded of what left him like this. That memory shot right through his head and made him jump up, the pain ignored, and open his eyes wide.

What?.. - he panted, recoiling from the horrible thought. The comment, however, was also applicable to the place he found himself in.

It was still the library, yes, but it did not look like it did when… that happened. It did not look abandoned. The lamps that hung dead on the walls before now shone brightly, giving the place a warmer, more welcoming feeling - too bad his coat was still all but electrified from what he suffered. There was no dust laying in layers on every object in the library, either - granted, it being a library, a few books were not sparkling new, but nonetheless the difference was glaring. Rain could be heard banging on the walls - he even thought he heard thunder. Lastly, there was no hospital bed or chest standing in the middle of it.

“No, not a death dream. Too stable. Too consistent. My subconscious can’t be that frigid. What then? Was it something… it did?”

The thought of the encounter froze him up once again. It took good old fake comfort talk to get his brain to function again.

“It’s left. Nothing is wrong. Everything’s safe, for now. If it was still here, I’d be dead. It didn’t kill me then, either. I’ll be fine. Back to looking. Think again.”

Fighting through the static terror of the majority of his thoughts, he had managed to catch onto the fact the air was fresh, unlike before. There was a strange smell, though. He successfully looked around and found the source - the same old table from before, not too far from him, still tumbled over, but with fresh ink on it. Only that was not the main discovery he made as he turned around.

Ah, shit.

He was standing in a pool of blood. He woke up in it, in fact. Drenched in blood he was, and it steadily dripped down on the floor, back to the pool. And yet he did not feel like someone who had lost that much blood. A splitting headache, a strange tingling in the lungs and a high-pitched noise in his ears - that was all present, yes, but having bled that much would have at least made everything go triple in his eyes. And he would not be able to stand up for that long. Lastly, he had no wounds that would bleed, not that much. An impact like this would have resulted in inner hemorrhaging, sure, but even that was evidently not the case.

“It’s fresh. Hasn’t darkened yet. Smells fresh, too… this is sick.”

He looked behind himself, at the door.

Ah, shit.

The blood was not confined to the pool he stood in. It covered nearly all of the entrance, then slipped into a rich trail that lead to the pool - and then there were prints that lead to the stairwell and up to the other floor.

“I remember ending up on the floor here. Not the door. Besides… that’s not what my blood smells like.”

He paused for a second, eyeing the bloody shape on the door.

“Why the hell do I know what my blood smells like?”

Shaking his head, he fought off the sickness in his stomach and stepped out of the pool. That was also when he noted that the bust, which, as he had seen before, spotted a dent and old blood marks, now had fresh ones instead, either covering or - improbably - replacing the old ones. He sniffed again.

“Same blood. Not mine. Got lucky, I guess… Could have hit it. Thing sure keeps getting hit a lot in recent times.”

He made a couple of steps up the stairs, subconsciously knocking on each step with another random book he picked up and leaving a second trail of bloodied hoofprints next to the one already laid out for him in red. It could not escape the eye that the ones he left were nearly identical to the other ones, which were still fresh. While hoof size was more of a superfluous clue, it was rather unsettling. That was with his definition of “unsettling” having taken a rather big new high that day, too. The bright side to that was that he still understood the concept of “unsettling”, his amnesia only seeming to cover personal memories. At least that was the assumption.

“At least the stairs are still safe.”

That was reassuring, but not as much as he would hope.

The upper floor was similarly renovated, for lack of a better word. The rails, however, were still damaged, and…

“No, no, no, no, not again.”

Oh, fuck, don’t look, - he ordered himself.

The window from before was flung open, and, same as before, did not let through any air - despite the storm clearly raging somewhere beyond the walls. The caricature of an outside was still completely grey. He neglected to notice that before, he did not want to think of it, but all the windows were still very much just like that. Now, though, he knew what would happen if he looked, or even thought of getting out through them.

“I’m trapped.”

A single brief look, however, was enough to make him hear the voice. It was faint, brief, but enough to make his skin freeze and crawl. The same dissonant, impossible voice that screamed, muttered and whispered broken, jumbled phrases. The same voice that was just wrong.

WHO you why WHO ouT?

Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, - he panted, the headache taking a rise. He could not let it come through again. With what could pass for blunt force, he made himself stop thinking about it and concentrate on what he was doing.

“Follow the trail. Nothing is wrong. You’re close. You’re doing okay.”

One titanic effort later, his head turned and his eyes slowly rose up to see where the trail ended. The prints were not very solid there, the blood was mashed all over the floor, and ended near one of the bookshelves. On one of them, he found something that actually made it possible for him to move.

“Yes.”

A blood-stained, slightly torn saddlebag. It was his. He knew it. He was so close now.

WHO?

Below, a sound that defied explanation non-echoed through the room. He was close now. He knew it. It did not want him to know.

you WHY?

There was no time. He made the bag nearly pounce to him with a rough telekinetic pull, and quickly shuffled through the innards, doing his best to ignore the fact that the sound was getting louder and closer.

Where is it… where is it?..

With a raspy, panicked cough, he realized that what he was looking for was not going to be there. He had no idea what exactly that was, but he knew what happened to it. Now he was doomed.

whh wh shreds hw who who whahaha haha ha TORE

His eyes no longer even blinked. That was it.

whhaha who do you HAHAHAHA who THINK WHO I AM think why?

I don’t have what you want, - he stated, his voice empty and bland, - I tore it to shreds.

WHO?

The voice was so close now, it was right behind him. He didn’t want to know that it ever existed.

WHO?

His head twitched. His jaw was shaking. His mouth could barely open. With effort, he looked down and stared at what was in the saddlebag.

WHO?

His eyes widened.

- PI Frame Fixer, “Fixer Offices”, stallion, unicorn, ex-DI in the LPPD, above average service record, resigned by choice, no living family members, not married, twenty six years old.

The voice screamed in a distorted, incomprehensible rage. In the same broken pattern, he heard sounds of a struggle. Still, he just stared down at the documents inside his bag.

Through the mind-twisting filters and sounds, there was a sound of something wooden breaking. Then, a loud thud. Then another. More screaming, yelling. A pained gasp, a cough. A creak of the door.

See? That’s who I am.

That was not him talking. But then, it was.

I fix things that are wrong.

He finally fell face down, with the rustling of the papers being the last sound he heard before the intolerable headache and the sheer mental strain finally took over. For once, a peaceful sound.

Lenient Interjection

Author's Note

Formating-Dark is recommended for this chapter. Medium Dark could work, too.

Lenient Interjection

There was nothing to be seen.

Nothing that could be seen.

He tried to argue. It did not bend to him. He would watch, he would twist himself and bleed out of his eyes, but he would watch. It was important.

For now, it was a shapeful void of dark semi-shapes that lumbered in the distance and gave out a spasmatic toxic stench. They knocked and knocked. They shuffled and dragged. What was of him that looked at the images from beyond reality could not possibly begin to comprehend the workings of it. His being itself was not built to compress this kind of image. He knew he was lucky to see as much as he did.

The Orb gave out a roar as it settled down in temporary defeat. If not even he could see all of it, then it would make him. Not now, however. His trace was beginning to fade.

It was time to return. Essence became flesh again, and he felt the damp stone of the chamber, the choking winds replaced by the odour of decaying bodies and fresh vomit. The tunnel was no more, the light was no more. The Orb itself seemed to be no more, but he knew better, he felt it now. The greyish light shone closer now. He was given a better purpose.

He had something to fix.

- Detective?.. Detective?! Lt., what just happened? Where did you—

Outside of the system.

He did not expect to wake up, he really did not. That had to have been it. An end to the insanity, whatever it was. It did not matter, not when he had his skull crushed through. There was no pain, there were no thoughts, there was no world gone wrong. There was only whatever was left of the afterlife, if there ever was one.

His fully intact and breathing body seemed to disagree.

“Nothing is wrong.”

With little space for external thought, he ran a check of limbs and insides. Everything was in place. Much like the other times he thought he was dead, he appeared to be entirely alive.

This time, the problem was that there was no explanation for how that could possibly come to be. No lucky fall, no lucky existence shift, no freak coincidence. Yes, the world made no sense anymore, yes, the laws of physics stepped down in favor of reality-bending Errors, and yes, everything around him would shift on a whim, but he just had a huge metal spike run right through his head, piercing his left eye and crushing the cranium along with the brain.

He had no business lying down on something soft, seemingly devoid of not only a gaping hole in his head, but also the numerous bruises and cuts he had sustained over his time in there. The vest was still on, and he could feel some form of faint light touching his tightly shut eyelids.

“Nothing is wrong.”

As his consciousness returned from wherever it stored itself for when he blacked out, he had begun to realize that whatever caused this could not possibly have been any good. A possible best case scenario was that all of it was, in the end, just a dream, and he merely woke up - and even that would signify at least a dozen of mental disorders. The other best case scenario was that it was, once again, a death dream, in which case he was dead. Somehow he struggled to think which of these was better.

“You’ll carry on. Good.”

That proved to be irrelevant, as something much less desired made him realize that this was no best case scenario.

HEllo?

“Nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong nothing is wrong”

aRE yoU -

He recognized that wretched sound. It was one of the Errors. The memories, painful as ever, drilled their way through his head again, and started to form a very conflicting realization.

alRIght?

There was nowhere to go, it was close. His body was awake enough to recognize what used to be slight tingling as the desire to jump out of its skin, curl into a ball and hurl out intestines.

pleASE answER itis difficult

He tried to jump out and run away, but was immediately betrayed by the massive migraine that went over him as he shot up from what seemed to be a bed. Naturally, the sickness had decided to stay, even though all other damage to his body was no more. He tumbled onto the floor and felt the cold touch of dry stone.

I’m sOrry I I I I frighten very diffiCULT

One last attempt at escape was thwarted in what felt like the most shameful way possible - he got himself tangled up in the blanket, his head ripping apart and his lungs pumping out blood for him to cough. He was curled up in front of a non-thing that broke reality by every second of its existence. The spike through the eye seemed like the superior choice.

“Nothing is wrong.”

Of course, that was not considering the realization that had been forming in the minute that passed since he breathed again.

This was an Error, yes. Not just an Error - there was never just an Error, no, they were all different. This was a particular one. He recognized the distorted sounds and noises it was emanating.

pLEase I cAnt see

Each of the Errors had a particular… sound-set, of sorts. Having encountered as many as five by that point, Fixer was able to recognize their “voices”. Those that he had dispatched stayed in his memory as well, as it unmercifully refused to discard the blood-curdling distorted half-sentences they would form.

The light blue one, the one that pursued him still, used a gruff, raspy, yet still feminine voice as the base for its screams. The dark blue one, the first one off the list, had a languid tone to its. The orange one, the one that herded him like an animal, had a hint of an accent in what its botched noises put out. The pink one, the debilitated thing from just a while before, seemed to have a naturally high pitch to what it used for its gurgles and muffled screams.

This was the yellow one. The one that he had barely seen at all. He was yet to open his eyes, dreading the experience, but he could tell that it was the yellow one. Soft, hushed tones, preserved even in the twisted transistor that the Errors used to vocalize.

The only times he remembered having seen or heard it were when his life was in direct danger, and always then inexplicably saved - be it through warning or through what he still could not explain. He could not count it as a coincidence anymore.

That thing was helping him.

What, - the unicorn backed off to what felt like a stone wall, and faced, eyes shut, the source of the gut-wrenching feeling, - what are you?

A frightening moment came when the Error made a noise that he could only interpret as a sigh of relief. Very jumbled, ran through pitches and tones, but still audible. He did not want to consider the fact that the Errors understood him. He did not want to comprehend the fact that they had understandable intelligence. And yet, he had to suffer more blows to that desire.

I am a FRIeND.

This was wrong.

He twitched in the bed, his cold sweat drenching the sheets. It hit another peak, almost depriving him of all senses but blurred, muffled hearing. That, and pain.

That was not what was wrong.

What was wrong was how she was still there. The others would leave if his condition got even half as bad. It did so, regularly, and perhaps mercifully, as his hatred for their sheer existance was even more debilitating than the sickness he was shackled with. This time was worse than before, though, but she did not leave.

He still could not understand why she kept coming. The others did so more as a sort of twisted courtesy, and then would thankfully go to run their putrid errands. This one, however, seemed intent to spend as much time near him as he coughed out dark ichor and convulsed in agony, his mind being ripped to shreds with the shuffling and the knocking of a world done right.

What was her angle in all this? He tried to come to any sort of logical conclusion, but nothing made sense. She would spend hours tending to someone revoltingly sick, someone whom she did not know, and someone who she knew may just have had something against her and the rest. That was pointless. Even the theory that she was the one sent to make nice with him - so that they may get around his pretense amnesia - fell apart when the others started to argue with her about what she was doing. They were not putting on a show, they were genuinuely as confused as he was.

That was wrong.

Something was wrong with her, on an even deeper level than the others.

The jagged pieces snapped through his veins yet again, and impaled the shivering lungs, sending him into a near-silent coughing fit. As the sound of turning gears filled his head, he began to recite his mantra to keep himself sane.

“Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong.”

Something soft and gentle pressed against his chest, tenderly gliding over it in what felt like an attempt to soothe the pain. He could barely distinguish it, but the soft, hushed voice hummed in an almost caring tone. The ripping and tearing stopped, and he was left to lax, only able to breathe heavily, with pain. The gentle feeling went to around his neck, and for a few seconds the top part of his body felt warm - as opposed to the scalding hot temperature it was enduring from the fever.

Maybe, nothing was wrong.

His eyes sharpened and grew wide, still shut tight. He took a second to realize what just went through his head.

He had found the problem.

Fixer stood in place, static, safe for the occasional twitching his limbs fell victim to, unable to keep control of themselves without the overworked mind’s assistance.

It was busy processing what was just said.

I am vERY soRry I try

The Error was talking to him. Actually replying to what he was saying. It comprehended his simple language, and spat out bits and pieces of sounds to make a reply. Its sentience stretched to his lowly level.

Better yet, it was on his side.

He took what lasted like whole minutes to accept that fact as a reality. Then, he felt he had to make sure anyway.

Do you… understand me?

YEs.

What… the fuck… is going on, - was a stupid question to ask. He cared little about that - he was glad he still had control of his speech in light of how his head felt like an overcrowded workshop.

I don’T know.

“Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Nothing is wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong.”

Can I… open my eyes? - he asked her, defying most of his own stances on sanity, - I’m… I can’t look at you for long.

I unDersTand. Wait.

The unicorn kept taking deep breaths and exhaling slowly, the sickness in a low enough period to allow him to do so. He already knew what he would have seen should he have opened his eyes prior to that - a screaming amalgamation of colors, pictures and everything that was wrong with the world, plastered over every bit of the room. He felt it with his skin, and even had the writhing sensation reach the outsides of his eyelids, notifying him of the horror beyond. This Error was spreading it, he could feel it. The wrongness in it and the surroundings was very similar.

It was curious, to say the least, when it started to become apparent that there was less and less of it with every second.

you caN open yoUr eyes. iT is sAfe. SorrY.

Damning himself for even considering the motion, he did so. The voice was coming from behind him now. And the surroundings felt… normal. Dry, old, dusty, abandoned, dead. Describable. Normal.

I… - he stared at the chamber, dancing shadows still on his eyes from how long and how tight his eyes were shut, - thanks.

“I just thanked an Error.”

“There are worse things to do with one, I suppose.”

aRe yoU feEling okay? I worRy.

I, uh, - Fixer continued to examine his surroundings, weakly stepping away from what served him as a bed, - I’ll… live. What did you do to me?

That was just one of the very many questions he had regarding the situation. Naturally, he chose the most blunt way to phrase it, his throat revolting against the idea of letting the words out. It may not have been the best to treat something this complex this way, but he was glad his mouth still moved at all.

I I I I I I diff ficc Iworry I very HArD I aM SoRRY

The painful screeching emerged at the back of his head as the world started to flash colors that neared undescribability. At the very least, his assumption regarding the statement’s propriety turned out to be correct - unfortunately, it did not feel like politeness could solve the issue.

He leapt over his previous place of residence via reflex, and crouched tightly. Everything shuddered, the blinking and flashing gliding over nearly all surfaces. Curiously, that was safe for where he found refuge. As the Error emanated what he could only describe as a disturbing attempt to cry, he tried to keep his sanity intact by checking off the question of his current location, the small corner left unchecked or forgone by the forms and shapes that screamed in the air.

I am sO sOrrY no oTHer wAY

It was the morgue.

I shoUld donE thIs mysElf but TOO WEAK

The precinct morgue. He had been there many times. Memories started to drill in as he looked at the empty cadaver carts and the perpetually abandoned equipment tables. Granted, they were devoid of actual medical equipment, instead littered with shards of glass and what looked like scrunched papers covered in stains of some dark liquid. It was cold in its dim light, and a slight chill ran down his spine, exiting him in a cloudy breath.

so sOrrY but LittLe time PleaSe listen aRe you liSTening?

While Fixer looked towards the dark staircase that looked like it lead up to where the auxillary corridors used to be in the precinct, he struggled to keep his eyes open - the flashes and screeches had begun to take proper shape. They felt even more the same as the weeping Error, and emitted a faint yellow light. In a sense, they may have been its offspring or companions - incomplete, unfinished and not nearly as big as the main one, they faded in and out of existance, fluttering around with the desperation of birds whose nest caught fire.

Some took to the air, swirling around the defunct lamps, while some neared the ground, pouncing and leaping to and fro. They had different shapes, but discerning them was extremely taxing, as not only would they only fade in for but a few seconds before fading out, but also shared the Error’s main characteristic - they were wrong to the core, and even looking at them felt like taking a hacksaw to the skull.

In all that, the best choice coincided with the most outrageously logic-defying one.

He had to keep talking to it.

I am! - the unicorn screamed out, trying to overpower the omnipresent noises, - I am listening!

To his major dismay, as soon as he replied, the chaos took a surprising low, and the flashes turned into flickers, shapes becoming mere dots before him. The incoherent struggling sounds the Error had been making throughout the whole ordeal calmed down, and again it uttered the same sigh of relief. The conversation between a mortal and an Error continued.

good pleaSe uNDerstAnd itIS veRy diFFICult to tAlk, we nEed to bE quiCK.

Okay! - it was devastatingly difficult to try and keep a proper tone, as half of his brain threatened to shut down if he continued what he was doing, - What do you want to say? I am listening to you, I’m right here!

I am trYing to hELp you. yOu can fiX thIS oNly you I hAD to brING yoU back I canT do It aGAIN she wIll find me.

He sat still, pressing his temples. Deciphering the Error’s speech was a very difficult task, not only because it spoke in shreds of words that belonged to a world now past, but also because the notion that it was saying something that needed to be processed still seemed painfully atrocious to his mind.

He also did not like what it was trying to say.

She? Who’s “she”?

I dOnt KnoW I am afRAid pleaSE onLY you cAn Help.

How? What do I do? Where do I go?

Fixer would rather lie down and smash his head against the cold hard floor till his cranium cracked apart. And yet, he asked the Error for advice.

gO fuRthEr on aND keEP doIng whaT you WEre it HURts but theY are bettER now please

They? - the other Errors, he realized, - Do you know them? Why are they here? What… what are all of you?

He scolded himself internally for being unable to keep a stable hold on his mouth. Not under any circumstances should he have asked her more than she was going to tell, but still, his internal curiosity went far beyond the limits of proper rationale.

They… We… We doNT ReMeMbER.

The silence and calm that followed his question and the answer to it frightened Fixer. They could not have meant anything good. The stinging feeling in his head rushed on again, and he realized that from that point, what he said would have made little impact.

So he kept speaking, having had his rational thinking leave the reins of speech unattended.

I… I am sorry, - the unicorn gulped, feeling the Error’s bludgeoned radiance pulsate incohrenetly behind him, - I will fix this. I will fix all of this. Everything will be fine.

PleAsE… It iS awFuL. I wANt iT toBE oVer.

I… so do I.

I I I I I I diff ficc I worry I I did nOT hELP ENOUGH I need to I aM SoRRY

I need to go too.

He stood up. He was going to.

I I I sHe Will fIND mE I couldnT heLP PLEASE I AM

She won’t.

The Shard felt so right, back in his grip. He would hold on to it for all eternity if he could.

I I I plEaSE veRy difficUlt to tAlk I cant

Yellow. Weak yellow. Strings of rosetta.

plEASE wHY I want tO

A small critter. A bright sky, crossed over by a window. A blood and sweat-stained bed. A blur of pain. A bottle of pills. The same faces. The same places. A horrible mixture of colors. A ray of hope.

I am soRry I please just NOw

“Two to go.”

And so he collapsed onto the tray, aiming to pierce himself with the treasured shard, so that they may be together in blackness.

Naturally, it escaped him yet again.

Senseless.

That was the problem - she was senseless.

It fit in perfectly. The others took on something sensible that built up this joke of a world, but this one went further. She combined all of that, and got a blank, pointless sheet as a result.

Her actions did not make sense. They did not add up. Her existence was pointless, meaningless, and still she existed, and reaped all the fruits of privilege. The others revered and protected her as if there was any sliver of reason for her to exist. The puppet doctors even let her stay with a dangerously sick patient, all because it was her and not someone else - she was not even part of the staff. No, she did not make sense. Her sole being made the world make less sense.

She never had to embody any of the glaring underlying issues. She was just the perfect blanket for them to shape up and stand as the pillars of this broken world, because nothing would ever have to make sense.

That was no more.

He limped off, having lost control of his hind leg. He had very little time, the Orb was already getting started with the process.

The unicorn paid the corpse one last look. Slouched against a chair, she was surrounded by her fluttering critters that wailed and cried as their owned did not move.

Not even when they pecked out her punctured eye.

She still wanted to help him.

He awoke when he realized that he was bashing his head against the wall. Giving the action a second of now conscious thought, he proceeded, meeting the yet unstained concrete wall and scraping it with his horn.

There was no way to tell how much time had passed, but however long it was, it was not enough for him to deal significant enough bodily harm to himself. That was both a relief and a shame. Fixer was more considering of the latter conclusion.

It was so much better when there were no memories. Now, he could not help but do so. The speeding images burning through his head could not help but leave some of themselves visible, even if they were mostly a blur. So much he tried to hide away and not think of, but he could not do that with all of them.

Some things he just had to face.

Like the corpse that was lying on the tray.

I killed everything, - Fixer said blandly, delirious from what felt like both phantom pain from his skull being crashed through and the aftermath of having bashed it against the wall.

“Congratulations. Now will you go?”

I… killed everything, - the unicorn slid his back down the scrape-covered wall and propped himself against the tray. He said the words, but barely understood the meaning behind them. The subconscious came to the conclusion before the main conscious did.

“You have to carry on.”

I know.

- Um… h-hello? Are you… are you alright? Oh, I’m so sorry, I just… I just wanted to check on you. The doctors said that you caught something awful in the forest. You… can’t remember anything?

He did not notice when the morgue changed.

What his blurred vision could show him included an eerie scene all over the chamber. The sections and holders used to be empty, looking near sterile, albeit abandoned. Now, they were stocked with corpses.

It would have disturbed him greatly, if not for the pain in his head and the thoughts it contained. As it stood, the overpopulation of the morgue was merely a curious fact that he only held on to in order to keep them in check.

Rising weakly from where he sat, Fixer nearly threw up, the inner imbalance and severe headache joining in with the sickness. It was not gone, not at all. Provided that his death and reformation were not an errant fever dream, - which he gladly would believe if he could - they were not perfect. Whereas he lacked the injuries he had sustained on his way there, the fever had remained. The shreds of logic his bleeding mind mustered together were coming to the conclusion that it was not at all a normal sickness, but something much worse instead. That fact was beginning to frighten him more and more as his head started to clear up.

- Please, I want you to understand how sorry I… we all are, for what happened to you. They might now show it, but they are concerned about you, they really are… I… I don’t know. It’s very difficult on all of us. But, please… please, don’t give up. Alright?

There was no exit that he could find. Even as his mind did the logical thing and shut off whichever part was responsible for the thoughts about his memories, there was nothing to be found. The stairway that seemed to lead up just went up until it took a logic-defying turn and became spiral, ramming into the solid ceiling, covered up by some dark cloth. Nothing else Fixer tried seemed to even hint at an exit.

It was a little funny. He wakes in a morgue after having thought himself dead, only to be locked there forever.

Unfortunately, he knew full well that the humor was likely inapplicable, as the sheer nature of the world would not have it that one place stay stagnant for long. Granted, he already did gain some company in the form of the numerous corpses, but that was not going to be the last change.

It was much more likely that yet another disaster would simply send him running for his life. Again.

- I just wish you could answer me. It must be so difficult to talk when it’s like… this, but I just want to hear you say something. I… I… nevermind me. I’m sorry. I wish I could help more.

He walked among the dead, and wished he never fought back. Every single face recoiled painfully in his comatose memory, and for every one he remembered a failure. These… he had seen them before.

They were in the ‘forest’. It felt so long ago now, but the events still stood fresh before him, the delirious climb through a sea of corpses towards the heaven-forsaken Orb. These were the corpses. Now he had nothing to distract him, and saw each and every one of them for who they were. Victims just as well.

Ignorance, reluctance, brutality. They all died to that. He remembered filing reports on one killing after another, and with each and every one, something died deep inside. Soon enough, there was nothing left to die.

As he felt the mourning and angst take a rise, sharing their spot with the fever, Fixer realized that that something was there again, and it was actively dying.

- What? Wh- what are you doing over here? How did you— Wait, please, wh—

He sat in the middle of the room and reduced himself to waiting for the world gone wrong to roar up another obstacle for him to cross. He could almost feel it coming, the tingling in his bones only partly owing to the fever.

It would not leave him to die like this, surrounded by corpses of those that he failed to protect from the world that once was. It would be too simple. Too lenient a death for someone like him, whom this new world seemed to hate furiously.

“A shared sentiment.”

I know, - Fixer answered half-heartedly, his ears perking up as he realized that the echo had changed.

There was something new in the room. Some space was added - no roars, no flashes, nothing. This time it was silent.

- De- tec- tive.

Or perhaps, he was just too deep in his thoughts to notice it.

Fixer dragged himself off the paper table in the middle of the morgue, which he had been using as a chair for the passed while. His instincts still in place, he mercifully had little more than one thing on his mind, now that he heard those words - he had to run.

- De... thec... thive?

As much pity as he felt for them, he still realized that a death by them would be a painful ordeal - unless he gets lucky, like last time. With the way of death, that is. Any more second chances were probably out of the question. The Error that made him be again was gone. He stepped carefully around the wall that separated him from the staircase, where the steps and voices were heard, and prepared himself to the sight of the lumbering shapes that mumbled his title.

The first thing he saw was a huge hole that consumed most of what used to be a solid wall, and lead into darkness.

Oh, you f—

The second was each and every one of the Victims.

Noone else was good enough, just him. That was not a compliment, that was a sad, damning truth - that someone as miserable as he would be the one chosen to turn this travesty into something great.

Even then, he was not yet fit either. He could not see what it wanted to show him, he could not do what it wanted him to do - the one thing he could do was think the thoughts that it wanted him to, and willingly so.

He needed to be changed. It would be painful, and it would not fare well with any errant thoughts. He would learn to smell his own blood by experience. But it had to be done, and so he agreed.

He laid on the dry soil of Everfree and half laughed-half coughed to himself, catching a glimpse of that thought.

What the hell was in his head?

- De- tec- tive!

The Victims stood all around him.

- De- tec- tive.

Each of them. The broken one from the “forest”, still shaking and wheezing, barely standing still. The blinded one from the maze, still carrying the chain Fixer cut him loose from. The one that killed him, completely covered in leather, spikes protruding from nearly every joint in his body, rendering him barely mobile. And with them, every single corpse that laid dead until just a few minutes ago - now they locked him in their shambling, muttering circle.

Primordial panic left Fixer incapable of much thought beyond the capacity to realize the fact that what just happened was technically and realistically impossible. They never came in, they never rose - he saw the corpses in their places seconds before the three came to his attention. They gathered round him within a second. Beyond the initial circle, more of them seemed to appear every time he blinked - those he recognized as the ones that shared the maze prison with the chained one.

Logic said that it was nothing to be surprised about, as few things made sense anymore.

It also said that his time was finally at an end, painful or not.

- De- tec- tive.

They still would not move. They formed a full circle, and then some, to lock him in, but then, they did little more than stare, wheeze and mumble.

After a few seconds of paralysis, Fixer realized that something was off with their behavior. They had no reason to do any of it - just leap at him and tear him to pieces. It was unlikely that they even knew it was him - none of them had eyes of any description. But they were more complex than that.

They were waiting for something. Or someone.

Panting desperately, Fixer nearly fell to his knees as his memory control took a breach at the least opportune time, sending him into a fit of pain and delirium. When he lifted his head, another Victim stood in front of him.

- Detective.

He had never seen this one before. She was nearly intact, and had very little in the way of grotesque devices bolted into her. For all intents and purposes, she was just a dark vanilla mare with a very short grey mane, still donning an official-looking suit, covered in blood and dust, obscuring her slender frame. Blurry square glasses were perched at the root of her snout, obscuring the eyes.

- Detective.

Her mouth barely moved, but still her speech came out more directed than that of the others’.

She should not have been able to speak. There was a huge gaping hole in her neck.

- De… thec… thive?

- De- tec- tive!

- Detective.

Fixer’s eyes widened as the new Victim took a painful lean and looked right at him. This one had eyes - he could see them behind the glasses. Blank and unmoving, they stared right into his as he tried to understand what was going on.

Were they mocking him? Did they call in their superior to judge him, and then pull him apart? If that was the case, he would not blame them. They did not know any better.

And if they did, they would do much worse than that.

- Detective.

The vanilla one’s voice sounded strangely different each time she spoke. Perhaps, this was some language that, because of his failure, was shaped this way. This time, she had an almost commanding tone to her word.

He realized that this was it. The muttering stopped, all noises did - they were preparing himself.

As Fixer accepted the fact that he would never make things right, and merely tried to feel happy at how the end had finally come, he suddenly heard a simultaneous clop.

When nothing followed at all, the unicorn opened his eyes, feeling that if he were to die a final death, he would at least face it.

“So, what is your rationale?”

His jaw threw itself agape.

“What the hell.”

They bowed to him.