To Lose Yourself
~What would you do if all that was you was taken away?~
Blood.
Blood on the wall was all he could see. He rubbed his forehead with a hoof and glanced at it, only to see more of the offending substance stand out bright against his white coat. He didn't even notice the pain anymore. He felt it was unnecessary to acknowledge pain now. He frowned at the red liquid and shook his head.
He wiped his hoof off on a clear patch of the wall, something that in recent days seemed to be harder to find. At least he had felt like it had been days. For all he knew, it could have been weeks. Time was irrelevant to him now. He mused over how he was once almost dependent on the time. It had once seemed to be the only thing on his mind. In here, however, it had no effect on him whatsoever.
He walked slowly over to the other side of the small, cramped box he was confined in that could have been easily be covered in about 20 steps and sat down on his haunches and stared at the wall. He didn't know exactly why he had felt the need to move, as staring at this metallic gray slab felt no different than staring at the red streaks adorning the wall opposite to him, but he moved anyway.
After a few moments spent staring at his cleaner wall, he turned away from it and approached his, for lack of a better term, "bed." It was as metallic and gray as the rest of his room. A small sack filled with approximately one pegasus feather had been haphazardly deposited on the end of his bed. He picked it up and slid it over to the place where he decided to lay his head this time, and placed himself on the bed.
It wasn't warm or comforting in the slightest. Not like a real bed. It irritated his head and neck and back and he hated it. Not like he had any say in the matter. He had what...whoever it was that ran this stupid place to thank for all of his luxuries. They could all rot for all he cared.
Suddenly he heard a noise around the wall that apparently doubled as the entrance to his pitiful room, and he looked up at it, almost vaguely interested by whoever it was that had decided to interrupt his beauty sleep.
"Ahh...," a feminine voice cooed as he shifted his position. "So you are awake, then?"
The stallion remained silent, content to simply glare in the direction the voice had come from.
"Oh, look at you. Are you giving me the... the silent treatment? Oh, how amusing! Much more fun than the pathetic ones who quake in fear and beg for their lives!" she exclaimed, almost laughing as she did so. "Pray tell, boy... where do you get your confidence?"
"Damn you and damn your stupid questions. Get out of my room and shut the stupid door behind you!" he snapped as he turned over and busied himself by examining his streaked wall again.
She stood for a few moments,simply looking at him. "Fine," she said, all hints of laughter gone from her voice. "But this won't be the last time we meet, my little pony. And next time, I shan't be so tolerant with you."
With this final statement, she departed. The white stallion stared stubbornly at his wall for a few more minutes until he realized his stress level was only increasing the longer it held his attention. He rolled onto his back and directed his scornful glare toward the defenseless ceiling. The stupid ceiling... with its stupid gray color and its stupid... metallic surface. He hated the ceiling almost as much as he hated the bed.
"Damn you!" he suddenly burst out, not entirely sure who he was talking to. "Damn you all! What is this place? What are you doing to me?! What the hell is going on here!?" he shouted, his pent-up aggression taking over, his unasked questions spilling forth in a torrent of rage.
He continued shouting at nothing in particular for what he assumed was a good hour, and then forced himself to stop. He inhaled deeply and exhaled several times, attempting to regain his composure,but the damage was done. he was sick of this place. He hated it here. He wanted to be gone from this place. From everything.
And with those final thoughts running through his mind,he finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
More blood.
More blood on his hooves, more blood on the walls, and now there was blood on the floor.
He growled at the gooey stuff and turned away from it. He began pacing back and forth from one wall to the next, flaring his wings angrily. Some part of him seemed to think there was something wrong about him having wings, but he ignored the nagging feelings and continued storming angrily through his box.
He was becoming more and more annoyed with everything around him. The odd substance covering his wall that had apparently oozed out of him for whatever reason, the stupid, cold bed, the ceiling, the floor, himself. They all made him unbearably angry and he didn't know why. he didn't care, though. He just hated them.
Then his "door" opened again. He had expected this visit. It had seemed like quite a while since she had last graced his room with her presence. it was her again. That... female.
"Why, hello again, little pony. How are you doing today?" she asked in an almost friendly tone.
"Can you do me a favor and go fall off of a bridge?"
"Oh dear," she sighed. "Still so very hostile."
There was a bang and a flash of light, the color of which he felt he should be able to identify, and he was flung against the opposite wall, groaning as he slid down and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor with a series of loud thuds. There was more of that damned... stuff where his head had impacted against the cold, hard floor. He fixed his gaze upon the foul liquid and then turned to glare at the female again.
"How was that? Did you like that?" she inquired, the air of friendliness still somehow imbued into her words. "No, I don't think you did. Remember that feeling. Because if you even so much as look at me the wrong way ever again, that little act will be repeated."
He tried to growl at her menacingly, but it almost came out as a sort of whimper. So much for retaliation. She smirked and turned away from him, moving to exit the room. The door shut and all of the walls appeared to be the same, gray slabs they had always been.
Gray.
He didn't know even why he could still describe the walls as such. He couldn't even remember how to describe the splotches on his wall anymore, which he vaguely remembered was called, "blood," in the same way the light from before had a word he could attach to it. Something that made it... it. He felt angry again with these thoughts racing through his weary mind. He limped to his rest area and laid himself down, trying his hardest to sleep.
No blood. Not this time. No new blood for a while.
The confused stallion scratched at the back of his head. His horn had never been this much of an impediment before, had it?
Of course it had. Obviously it had. He had always had his horn, so he had never actually been able to touch the wall with his forehead. It was so obvious he facehoofed just thinking about how obvious it truly was. he had never been able to touch his forehead to this wall. The previous inhabitant had obviously lost his or her marbles.
Then why did he remember being the one who hit his head? He tried to dismiss it as simply being some sort of a bad dream, but for some reason he couldn't push the thought out of his mind. He shuddered for a moment, afraid that it was he that was losing his mind. He ran his tongue over his fangs nervously for a few minutes, but decided dwelling on it would only worsen the situation.
He paced around the room, trying to find something that would occupy his time. He at one point tried to carve a self-portrait into his wall opposite the stained one, but couldn't for the life of him remember exactly what he looked like. He knew he had four legs, a medium-sized body, some wings, and a horn on his head, but he knew nothing about his eyes, his mane, tail, or anything else regarding his physical appearance.
He flattened himself out on the floor and started rolling over and over on the floor in an attempt to distract his all-too easily distracted train of thought, quickly forgetting about what he was so worked up over in the first place. After he stood up, he wobbled a little bit, then fell back on his haunches. He shook his head and blinked his eyes a few times to clear his field of vision, and hen quickly remembered how bored he was.
Then again, he didn't even know why he felt bored. Apparently his room had always been like this, so why was finding something to busy himself with so difficult? Something told him it was because he hadn't always been in this room. but that was impossible.
He didn't even know what there was outside of this room.
He jumped in the air and flapped his wings rapidly to gain height, and was just about to experiment with the thought of walking on the ceiling when he suddenly felt extremely dizzy again. He crashed to the ground where he swore and moaned pathetically.
Gravity. Another thing to add to the list of things he hated.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The stupid ceiling that didn't have to listen to anything gravity had to say. It could just sit up there and look down at him and laugh. He really hated the ceiling. The ceiling could go burn in Tartarus for all he cared.
He slowly pulled himself back up to his hooves and brushed himself off. "Damn gravity... damn ceiling... damn empty room with nothing to do in it!" he shouted to no one in particular. He sighed and walked over to his bed. He picked up his sack-cloth "pillow" and poked another hole in it with one of his fangs. He didn't know why he had taken to doing it, but he just did it.
Not like anyone was going to see him or anything.
As he replaced his sad excuse for a pillow on his bed and climbed in,he found it hard to keep a clear train of thought as he was attempting to sleep. He thought it may have just been severe exhaustion, but it was almost as if he just... couldn't think right. He gave up trying to form any sort of coherent thoughts and just laid there, unsure of what else to do. Eventually he was taken by sleep, just as he had been every night, into a deep, troubled sleep, devoid of any dreams or any real relaxation.
He saw darkness. Only darkness.
A void darker than the walls of his room. He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't move.... he couldn't do anything. For some reason this failed to bother him. He had no need to think, no need to breathe. No need to do anything.
Without opening his eyes, his room was suddenly visible. Without even trying to move his body, he was up and out of his bed. First the strange wall came closer, then it went away, replaced by the rest of the room again. Things were fading in and out of focus, but his body, still unresponsive to the commands he could not be bothered to give, seemed to have no trouble navigating, not even stumbling once.
He saw things come and go and come again, but he had nothing to say or think about them. They were just there.
After the room had moved around for an extended period of time, the door opened.His head turned without his permission, and he was once again facing the female creature he had come face to face with many a time before. as with the last time she had entered the room, she almost looked positively giddy about something.Now almost more so than ever.
"Oh, my child. You've come quite the long way, haven't you?" she asked, sounding excited.
His head nodded. A voice that, if he had the capacity to think, he would have recognized as his own, replied, "Yes, Your Majesty. A very long way."
She laughed and grinned at him. "Oh, good. You really are ready now! Finally!"
So she walked up to him, put a wing that he could not feel against his side, and led him out of his room. As he exited the small, metallic box, he saw what appeared to be himself,judging by the fact that it was walking near the female... thing.
Big, blue eyes, pointy,insect-like wings, a black body, spikes running off of the back of his head...
Yes. Everything was just as it was supposed to be.
His vision began to fade away again. All he saw was a picture of the female's face, smiling at him. It spoke to him in a voice so soft and sweet that it began to lull him into the deepest sleep he had ever been in his life. One that he would never awake from.
"All hail Queen Chrysalis. Glory to her Majesty, the ruler of the Changelings."
~FIN
To Lose Yourself (Revised)
To Lose Yourself
~What would you do if all that was you was taken away?~
Laughter.
The sweet, sweet laughter of his small foal and his loving wife. He couldn't remember how he had gone through life before he had first heard those joyous sounds. It seemed as though the life he had once lived was just a memory. He chuckled as he thought of this. To him, it almost felt like he had been an entirely different stallion before.
It was strange, he thought, how just simple things like this could make him reflect on his life. he shook his head and sighed, retreating into their rather extravagant home in southern Canterlot. Tonight would be the night he would finally start cooking for his family. He thought it unfair for his mare to be doing the majority of the housework, so he had made a personal pledge to start helping her out a little more.
As he walked into the kitchen, he noticed the mirror that he had been planning on moving into the master bedroom propped against the wall and decided that if there was ever a time to admire himself without being ridiculed, it would be now.
He was a rather impressive earth pony stallion, tall, but not too huge, with a sleek, pristine white coat and a pair of emerald green eyes with a semi-long, flowing mane to match. He smirked at himself and flexed, admiring his muscles and winking at his reflection, but quickly stopped as he heard a fit of giggling behind him.
He turned and smiled sheepishly at the mint green pegasus mare leaning against the door frame that led to the backyard, who was grinning at him smugly.
"Hello, Mayweather... nice day we're having, isn't it?" the stallion asked, as casually as he could.
She shook her head and laughed. "Oh, yes, yes. Lovely. But I'm not exactly sure that's what has your full attention right now, Shinedown."
He laughed with her, shaking his head at his own ridiculousness. "Well, I won't lie, you've got me there. Well, in my defense, I was only going to admire the fantastic view for a while longer. I have a surprise for you and the little one."
"Oh? A surprise you say?"
"Yes. But you have to go back outside, or you'll ruin it. Go on, get. I'll call you when it's ready."
She rolled her eyes and turned around to go back outside. As she began to close the door, the small pony lying on her back noticed Shinedown looking at her and waved a tiny hoof frantically, smiling widely. He smiled back and turned to walk into the kitchen...
... And then the world ended.
An explosion.
Terrified shrieking.
Green fire.
Mad, cackling laughter.
And a tall, feminine silhouette.
Then it all went dark.
White. White filled his vision as everything began to come into focus.
His head throbbed, his body ached, he was unaware of his surroundings and he was frightened. He blinked a few times, trying desperately to dispel the blurry white tone his vision had taken. Once this had been accomplished, he almost wished it hadn't.
Pulling himself slowly to his hooves, he looked around, horrified by what he saw.
Four metallic, gray walls. There were no apparent entrances or exits.
He was trapped.
Imprisoned.
Jailed.
He wobbled a bit, struggling to keep his balance. He was suddenly aware he had no idea how he had gotten here. He felt like there was supposed to be something or even someone he was supposed to be worrying about, but for the life of him he couldn't remember.
Couldn't remember.
He couldn't remember anything. He searched his mind frantically for anything he could find. A name, friends, family, anything. But he found nothing.
He stumbled over to the wall, feeling sick now, and leaned his head against it, his breathing becoming ragged and his vision blurred once more.
"Remember," he told himself as he hit his head against the wall.
"REMEMBER!" he shouted, bashing his head even harder against the metal surface.
"DAMN IT! WHY."
Bang.
"WON'T."
Bang.
"YOU."
Bang.
"REMEMBER!?"
Bang.
His consciousness wavered and tears flowed. He sobbed uncontrollably as he slumped to the floor. He had no more memories now than when he had awoken. He cried and cried until he began to feel sleep overtaking him, and then he cried some more.
He didn't even look up to notice the red stain smeared across the smooth surface of his once clean wall.
Blood.
Blood on the wall was all he could see. He rubbed his forehead with a hoof and glanced at it, only to see more of the offending substance stand out bright against his white coat. He didn't even notice the pain anymore. He felt it was unnecessary to acknowledge pain now. He frowned at the red liquid and shook his head.
He wiped his hoof off on a clear patch of the wall, something that in recent days seemed to be harder to find. At least he had felt like it had been days. For all he knew, it could have been weeks. Time was irrelevant to him now. He mused over how he was once almost dependent on the time. It had once seemed to be the only thing on his mind. In here, however, it had no effect on him whatsoever.
He walked slowly over to the other side of the small, cramped box he was confined in that could have been easily be covered in about 20 steps and sat down on his haunches and stared at the wall. He didn't know exactly why he had felt the need to move, as staring at this metallic gray slab felt no different than staring at the red streaks adorning the wall opposite to him, but he moved anyway.
After a few moments spent staring at his cleaner wall, he turned away from it and approached his, for lack of a better term, "bed." It was as metallic and gray as the rest of his room. A small sack filled with approximately one pegasus feather had been haphazardly deposited on the end of his bed. He picked it up and slid it over to the place where he decided to lay his head this time, and placed himself on the bed.
It wasn't warm or comforting in the slightest. Not like a real bed. It irritated his head and neck and back and he hated it. Not like he had any say in the matter. He had what...whoever it was that ran this stupid place to thank for all of his luxuries. They could all rot for all he cared.
Suddenly he heard a noise around the wall that apparently doubled as the entrance to his pitiful room, and he looked up at it, almost vaguely interested by whoever it was that had decided to interrupt his beauty sleep.
"Ahh...," a feminine voice cooed as he shifted his position. "So you are awake, then?"
The stallion remained silent, content to simply glare in the direction the voice had come from.
"Oh, look at you. Are you giving me the... the silent treatment? Oh, how amusing! Much more fun than the pathetic ones who quake in fear and beg for their lives!" she exclaimed, almost laughing as she did so. "Pray tell, boy... where do you get your confidence?"
"Damn you and damn your stupid questions. Get out of my room and shut the stupid door behind you!" he snapped as he turned over and busied himself by examining his streaked wall again.
She stood for a few moments,simply looking at him. "Fine," she said, all hints of laughter gone from her voice. "But this won't be the last time we meet, my little pony. And next time, I shan't be so tolerant with you."
With this final statement, she departed. The white stallion stared stubbornly at his wall for a few more minutes until he realized his stress level was only increasing the longer it held his attention. He rolled onto his back and directed his scornful glare toward the defenseless ceiling. The stupid ceiling... with its stupid gray color and its stupid... metallic surface. He hated the ceiling almost as much as he hated the bed.
"Damn you!" he suddenly burst out, not entirely sure who he was talking to. "Damn you all! What is this place? What are you doing to me?! What the hell is going on here!?" he shouted, his pent-up aggression taking over, his unasked questions spilling forth in a torrent of rage.
He continued shouting at nothing in particular for what he assumed was a good hour, and then forced himself to stop. He inhaled deeply and exhaled several times, attempting to regain his composure,but the damage was done. he was sick of this place. He hated it here. He wanted to be gone from this place. From everything.
And with those final thoughts running through his mind,he finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
More blood.
More blood on his hooves, more blood on the walls, and now there was blood on the floor.
He growled at the gooey stuff and turned away from it. He began pacing back and forth from one wall to the next, flaring his wings angrily. Some part of him seemed to think there was something wrong about him having wings, but he ignored the nagging feelings and continued storming angrily through his box.
He was becoming more and more annoyed with everything around him. The odd substance covering his wall that had apparently oozed out of him for whatever reason, the stupid, cold bed, the ceiling, the floor, himself. They all made him unbearably angry and he didn't know why. he didn't care, though. He just hated them.
Then his "door" opened again. He had expected this visit. It had seemed like quite a while since she had last graced his room with her presence. it was her again. That... female.
"Why, hello again, little pony. How are you doing today?" she asked in an almost friendly tone.
"Can you do me a favor and go fall off of a bridge?"
"Oh dear," she sighed. "Still so very hostile."
There was a bang and a flash of light, the color of which he felt he should be able to identify, and he was flung against the opposite wall, groaning as he slid down and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor with a series of loud thuds. There was more of that damned... stuff where his head had impacted against the cold, hard floor. He fixed his gaze upon the foul liquid and then turned to glare at the female again.
"How was that? Did you like that?" she inquired, the air of friendliness still somehow imbued into her words. "No, I don't think you did. Remember that feeling. Because if you even so much as look at me the wrong way ever again, that little act will be repeated."
He tried to growl at her menacingly, but it almost came out as a sort of whimper. So much for retaliation. She smirked and turned away from him, moving to exit the room. The door shut and all of the walls appeared to be the same, gray slabs they had always been.
Gray.
He didn't know even why he could still describe the walls as such. He couldn't even remember how to describe the splotches on his wall anymore, which he vaguely remembered was called, "blood," in the same way the light from before had a word he could attach to it. Something that made it... it. He felt angry again with these thoughts racing through his weary mind. He limped to his rest area and laid himself down, trying his hardest to sleep.
No blood. Not this time. No new blood for a while.
The confused stallion scratched at the back of his head. His horn had never been this much of an impediment before, had it?
Of course it had. Obviously it had. He had always had his horn, so he had never actually been able to touch the wall with his forehead. It was so obvious he facehoofed just thinking about how obvious it truly was. he had never been able to touch his forehead to this wall. The previous inhabitant had obviously lost his or her marbles.
Then why did he remember being the one who hit his head? He tried to dismiss it as simply being some sort of a bad dream, but for some reason he couldn't push the thought out of his mind. He shuddered for a moment, afraid that it was he that was losing his mind. He ran his tongue over his fangs nervously for a few minutes, but decided dwelling on it would only worsen the situation.
He paced around the room, trying to find something that would occupy his time. He at one point tried to carve a self-portrait into his wall opposite the stained one, but couldn't for the life of him remember exactly what he looked like. He knew he had four legs, a medium-sized body, some wings, and a horn on his head, but he knew nothing about his eyes, his mane, tail, or anything else regarding his physical appearance.
He flattened himself out on the floor and started rolling over and over on the floor in an attempt to distract his all-too easily distracted train of thought, quickly forgetting about what he was so worked up over in the first place. After he stood up, he wobbled a little bit, then fell back on his haunches. He shook his head and blinked his eyes a few times to clear his field of vision, and hen quickly remembered how bored he was.
Then again, he didn't even know why he felt bored. Apparently his room had always been like this, so why was finding something to busy himself with so difficult? Something told him it was because he hadn't always been in this room. but that was impossible.
He didn't even know what there was outside of this room.
He jumped in the air and flapped his wings rapidly to gain height, and was just about to experiment with the thought of walking on the ceiling when he suddenly felt extremely dizzy again. He crashed to the ground where he swore and moaned pathetically.
Gravity. Another thing to add to the list of things he hated.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The stupid ceiling that didn't have to listen to anything gravity had to say. It could just sit up there and look down at him and laugh. He really hated the ceiling. The ceiling could go burn in Tartarus for all he cared.
He slowly pulled himself back up to his hooves and brushed himself off. "Damn gravity... damn ceiling... damn empty room with nothing to do in it!" he shouted to no one in particular. He sighed and walked over to his bed. He picked up his sack-cloth "pillow" and poked another hole in it with one of his fangs. He didn't know why he had taken to doing it, but he just did it.
Not like anyone was going to see him or anything.
As he replaced his sad excuse for a pillow on his bed and climbed in,he found it hard to keep a clear train of thought as he was attempting to sleep. He thought it may have just been severe exhaustion, but it was almost as if he just... couldn't think right. He gave up trying to form any sort of coherent thoughts and just laid there, unsure of what else to do. Eventually he was taken by sleep, just as he had been every night, into a deep, troubled sleep, devoid of any dreams or any real relaxation.
He saw darkness. Only darkness.
A void darker than the walls of his room. He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't move.... he couldn't do anything. For some reason this failed to bother him. He had no need to think, no need to breathe. No need to do anything.
Without opening his eyes, his room was suddenly visible. Without even trying to move his body, he was up and out of his bed. First the strange wall came closer, then it went away, replaced by the rest of the room again. Things were fading in and out of focus, but his body, still unresponsive to the commands he could not be bothered to give, seemed to have no trouble navigating, not even stumbling once.
He saw things come and go and come again, but he had nothing to say or think about them. They were just there.
After the room had moved around for an extended period of time, the door opened.His head turned without his permission, and he was once again facing the female creature he had come face to face with many a time before. as with the last time she had entered the room, she almost looked positively giddy about something.Now almost more so than ever.
"Oh, my child. You've come quite the long way, haven't you?" she asked, sounding excited.
His head nodded. A voice that, if he had the capacity to think, he would have recognized as his own, replied, "Yes, Your Majesty. A very long way."
She laughed and grinned at him. "Oh, good. You really are ready now! Finally!"
So she walked up to him, put a wing that he could not feel against his side, and led him out of his room. As he exited the small, metallic box, he saw what appeared to be himself, judging by the fact that it was walking near the female... thing.
Big, soulless, cobalt blue eyes, pointy, insect-like wings, a black body with various gaps and holes in it, spikes running off of the back of his head, fangs...
Yes. Everything was just as it was supposed to be.
His vision began to fade away again.
First, a light green pegasus mare filled his immediate sight. She had a satisfied look on her face, one that felt familiar yet alien to him, all at once.
Then he saw a dark green filly lying on its back, smiling at him, waving its hoof in the air. This image, too, felt strangely like a memory, but of something he had no prior knowledge of.
Finally, he remembered a word. One word. A name.
"Shinedown."
He had no idea who that was.
And suddenly, those images and "thoughts" forgotten, all he saw was an image of the tall, imposing female's face, smiling at him, her eyes glowing a sickly green. She spoke to him in a voice so soft and sweet that it began to lull him into the deepest sleep he had ever been in his life. A sleep that he would never awake from.
"Hail Queen Chrysalis, her Majesty, the ruler of the Changelings. For she, my child, knows all, and is all. Rest now. For when the dawn comes, you shall know your purpose. Obey the queen. Serve the queen. Know *nothing** but the queen."*
~FIN