Chapter 1: The Lowest End
Although she's not in a prison, she's not in pain or suffering, Queen Chrysalis finds herself in a situation where she must face her fears every day. She's stuck in a giant loop of discovering herself again and trying to learn how to live the normal life among ponies. She was trapped in a place with people around her and the only people who seemed to be just as unique as she was. Some people acted like they understood her but only she could see herself. Some people would pass her by and look at her like she would never be among the normal ponies and some held a bit of hope, at least she hoped that some ponies around her shared hope that maybe just one day she can come out of the dark and go beyond this illusion of a life and into a place with much more variety.
Queen Chrysalis was sitting in her room. Well it wasn't a room as much as a colorless and beige reality. Her bare door was nothing more than a small see out window and a painting she made on one side of the door. The rest of her room consisted of a bookshelf which contained a few books to try and escape from her reality with a chair that felt like it was on it's last leg. Her other walls were lined with posters recommended by her doctor and a cot that only contained a couple fairly thin sheets and a blanket she made as a project in a program she took part in. There was a pillow as well but it was a little lumpy and thin from all the times she hit at it in pure anger.
She once punched holes in the wall thinking back but all it earned her was a week in a room with nothing but four cushioned or padded as many would describe walls. She was very angry for those few days but calmed down and a sympathetic nurse decided to let her out. The place she was in had few locked doors and few windows barred but for some reason her brain still felt scarred to the point where she would sit and cry. Some ponies would try and comfort her in these times but the thing they couldn't help her with was her inner hatred. Brighter Spectrum was the name of the place but deep inside she knew it was just an asylum for the insane of society like her. It was a place where ponies went when they could no longer deal with reality or simply couldn't evolve and were now stuck having everything done for them at the sacrifice of being stuck in this phase for forever almost frozen in time.
The place was located near Canterlot and to anyone coming near the place it would look like a presentable brick building with flowers lined along the edge in a neat and well kept garden. A few of the windows were barred and the front door was always locked but other than that almost every other door was usually kept unlocked and the only doors in the high security wings and the doors leading outside were electronically locked. Although it seemed as though the idea was to get patients out as quickly as possible many ponies here knew they would likely never come out.
"I'm trapped in this small reality where everyone treats me like I'm normal, but still say I'm crazy." Thought Chrysalis to herself almost pacing around her room as she stopped after four paces. Her room only took her about four paces to the side and maybe five paces ahead as she peered out of her room. Her room had no windows and with only a few books to read and on her desk sat only some notebook paper and a pencil case with a small case of crayons. As she sat by her bed she could hear another pony except this one was walking down the hallway which seemed kind of rare at this time of the day.
"Chrysalis, you should really head out and talk to other ponies and as far as I'm concerned only trapping yourself in here at this time is only going to drive you down further and hurt you." said a nurse as she was walking across looking over from room to room. It was currently free time and while most ponies were off either in the game room or outside in the back yard area Chrysalis often spent this time in private trying to think about her situation and if she can ever break this long cycle. After what she did to to the entire nation of Equestria she was simply declared a threat by Celestia and Luna themselves and was sent right to Brighter Spectrum by recommendation of Twilight Sparkle herself.
She often cringed at such a name since so many praised Twilight and often called for her to become a princess in her own right. Being on the very bottom of society when she could have been the princess instead is what she had the hardest time realizing more than anything else in this world. She will never forget the day she was dragged out and shoved into the back of an ambulance carriage and publicly humiliated as people saw her in handcuffs like the fool she was. When she got to Brighter Spectrum a doctor was nice enough to instantly welcome her and told the city guardsmen to remove her handcuffs but the damage had already been done.
She was shown a place that had clearly been made to make for a home like environment but she had a hard time adjusting to when other ponies were all around her. Some of them seemed like they clearly had problems but others seemed like they were mere victims of the flaws of society.
Chrysalis generally hated the idea of being told what she had to do but with time she realized resisting would only make things worse. This was a place where even with the smiling nurses and doctors was a reality of scary ponies and ponies who still saw her as the freak of society.
When Chrysalis first came to the Brighter Spectrum she realised she had to quickly stop any defiance or she would end up like the ponies she would see near her doctors office standing almost chained up and lifeless. It's as though everyone in the hospital has been are the people society doesn't want to handle so that Chrysalis would lose all hope of returning to her glory. With three meals a day and an enclosed space over her head the average pony would think she has it fairly good for someone who caused so much and this was Equestria's idea of a punishment after all.
Chrysalis decided to take a look in a geography book hanging from her fairly small bookshelf and flip through the pages of Equestria's regions. The maps were somewhat outdated and the book wasn't in the best condition as well as kind of outdated since many books in the library were outdated. Another hard part of the experience was having no visitors, only a group therapy and private psychiatrist to talk to, and only some tightly packed corridors and a small yard to explore. It was always time for dinner and then with isolation time running low she had to move fast to avoid the rush of other patients from the yard and the game room.
The corridor outside her room was merely a line of doors with identical see through windows and beige walls that had clearly been poorly painted over in slightly brighter shades of green and black. It lead to a small hub between the other corridors that lead to the rest of the patients rooms and were split up between the minimum security wing to the isolation wing. The small hub had a glass opening overhead that would sometimes let in enough sunlight to feel the warmth over the tightly controlled temperature in the institution. Although it was tough trying to think of what it was like to feel the warmth of freedom and sometimes memories would flow back into nothing more than memories of remorse and tragedy.
It was hard for Chrysalis to walk through the dim hallways and out into the connecting hallway because she often found it very hard to walk into an area that was flowing with natural sunlight. It was like an abandoned asylum often seen in films and the building itself was fairly old but renovated to the point where it still looked presentable by modern standards. The game room that was connected to the hallway ahead from the corridor leading to her room was one of the few rooms that featured large windows and a well lit area. It also had some comfortable furniture scattered around and near the back were a few book shelves and a long used but still comfortable couch.
Around the corner from that was a gym that mostly pegasi used for flight and sometimes earth ponies for lifting weights. The cafeteria was on a connecting hallway and had a small sign above that looked like it could fall off any second. Like everything falling apart in the institution it might be replaced but the cafeteria itself was in the same shade of beige as the rest of the institution but this time had several cathedral shaped windows that were clearly designed to make one feel like they were looking out into a nice view. As Chrysalis entered she could see few ponies actually getting food or sitting down.
There were two doors leading into the cafeteria on one side with two orderlies guarding each door. The front of the cafeteria was where several staff were still working frantically at the front behind the counter and using the industrial cooking machinery to pull out as much as possible. Quantity over quality was mostly the case at Brighter Spectrum like any institution and trying to eat in the setting of many ponies who were fellow degenerates was just as bad or possibly worse than any prison.
At least in prison inmates can spend all day talking about how they never did the crime and that they shouldn't be in prison while here it seemed like everypony couldn't speak for themselves and were obligated to stay this way for life. In many cases although some patients had hope to get out with modern treatment many ponies would never leave as sometimes it seemed like none would. Of course it was useless to try and escape as many of the patients had nowhere to go and would be found, drenched in insanity by the city guards within days.
Chrysalis had been here for six months now and since she was sent to Brighter Spectrum against her will she practically has a life sentence biting her legs. Trying to sit and think in her room all day relieved her hatred for Twilight a little but only caused her to hate the way society had decided to punish her by trying to label her as a degenerate sociopath. Equestria was a state ruled by monarchs despite it's soft approach towards everything and the way citizens were generally treated was based purely on moral ethics.
