All in Your Head

You wake up with a warm feeling on your stomach, you groggily open your eyes to see a mint colored mare snuggled into your chest. The memories of recent events come racing back into your mind. You lay your head back against the office wall and relax, assuming you'd wake up when she did.

That's when the voices start up again.

"Kill her, she's slowing you down."

"She knows, she wants to kill you."

"She doesn't like you, she hates you, everyone hates you."

"WE hate you, that's why you're going to kill her."

"Do it, break her neck now!"

The voices continue on like this, slowly getting louder as they scream inside your skull. And the volume doesn't stop there. They are screeching orders into your skull now. It's making it hard to think. You get up, rolling Lyra onto the floor, and clasp your hooves over your ears to no avail. They get louder and louder, you've started yelling at some point, and start to smash things in the room to let off some steam. Suddenly, the voices just... Stop.

It went from screaming to nothing in just a few seconds... Just like that... Strange.

You turn around and see Lyra's horn glowing, staring at you with concern, but most of all, fear...

"Y-you alright? You're scaring me..." She asks, backing up as she did so.

"Yeah, I'm fine. What did you do to my head? And how did you know how to do that?" You respond.

"You started talking quietly, and mumbling. Then you just got up, and started screaming. You put holes in a few of the walls and started just freaking out, so I cast a spell I invented and usually used on myself. I assumed it was the voices, so I made them go away. It worked, right?" She asks.

"Yeah, yeah. Does everyone get those in their head? They aren't very polite..." You say.

"Well, I don't know. I didn't have them until this all started, but I think everyone does. I just feel bad for the Earth Ponies and Pegasai that have these problems, they can't make it stop."

"Right, well, no going back to sleep now, let's go. You said there was food somewhere, right? You are probably starving, and I know I am." You say.

"Oh, uh, right. The employee lounge. Or at least I think that's what it is. Yeah, let's go." Lyra speaks.

After about half an hour of walking and talking she has told you alot about the area's history. As well as some of her actions in this place. This asylum was like any other. Crazy ponies in, deceased or cured out. It went on like this for many years, until one day, the first disappearance happened. Followed by another, and another. Guards who started trying to find them vanished, too. It was so bad that almost 100 ponies vanished. A few weeks after the first disappearance, they came back, but... Different. They had black eyes, and no fur. They were mutilated and hardly speak. They didn't even seem to remember any of their friends, they just started killing everything mercilessly. Some had claws, others fangs, all of them had the ability to rip a pony to shreds in seconds if they got too close. Ever since the outbreak, this has been the asylum.

You take a look at Lyra, it's really a shame she's in here. She was visioning creatures called 'Humans' for some time, she began to see more and more of them, until it practically ruined her life, and got her stuck in here. She had a best friend whom she lived with, but she couldn't remember the other mare's name. All she knew is it was some sort of candy. She lived in Ponyville before all of this, and was friends with most of the town before her hallucinations kicked in. Bad things happen to good ponies you guess. Now that you think about it, she doesn't seem crazy at all. She doesn't look like she's having any form of hallucinations. Actually she's pretty funny, her life has alot of weird tales to tell about it.

"-and so I told him 'if you didn't like me you wouldn't have been crazy'" She laughs, you pitching in. She continues speaking.

"Anyways, we're here. Don't try the fridge, it's all spoiled. Everything else is in the cabinets. It's enough to keep me alive. Now it's here for you, too." She says.

"Right, how many times did you come here?" You ask her, moving to the far edge of the room and opening the cabinet. You find nothing but bread and hay. Not bad, but not the best.

"Oh, not much. I'm usually too scared to come out here alone, but with you here I just feel... Safer. I don't know really." She tells you, finding food of her own.

"Is that why you were about to pass out when we first met?" You tease.

"No I wasn't!"

"I thought you were going to have a stroke."

"I wasn't scared, I'm telling you!"

"You're eyes shrunk, you backed up, and begged me not to hurt you. You DID sound friendly!" You continue joking.

She huffs and starts rummaging through more of the food, filling a bag with a little hay and some crackers. She avoids the bread, probably moldy.

"So what DID happen to your leg?" You ask her, breaking the silence.

"This one?" She holds up the table-leg splint on her right hind leg. "Well, I was running from one of them, and it picked up a desk and through it at me, when it smashed, this leg was broken. I had to run with three legs, I only survived when I hid myself inside one of the bathroom stalls." She finishes speaking.

"Wow, I'm just glad you're alive. Does it hurt anymore?" You ask.

"Only if I put weight on it, thanks." She answers.

It stays silent after that for a while, the two of you filling bags with food to eat. You were STARVING, you don't remember the last time you ate.

Not that you remember many things at all right now... Moving on...

You head movement, not from either of you. You turn around and see her staring at you, frozen with fear. You hear a loud thudding, and quickly turn around to see a figure slamming on the wooden door a few feet behind you. Before you can run, it slams through the door and breaks into a full sprint right at you. It knocks you into the kitchen corner of the room, and starts slamming you into every object it can as fast as possible. Doing it's best to injure you, you hit it's flesh, finding it to be hard and rough, hurting your hand. You look around for something, anything you can use to save yourself. Each thud is giving you more stinging pain, and your vision is starting to fade fast. You find something, but have to hesitate to grab it, you don't want to have to use it.

On the counter, is a sharp, serrated, kitchen knife.

The beast answers your question first, slamming your head down on the counter with a 'crack', you scream in agony, you're certainly bleeding now. You reach out your hoof and grab the blade of the knife, pulling it closer you take the handle. You pull your hand far behind it's back, tense up your forearm, and begin rapidly running the knife through everything in it's back that seems important. Neck, chest, spine, you name it...

The beast squeals and falls to the ground, spazzing out before stretching it's body to full length, and collapsing. It's last breath spent. With one look you take in the full glory of it. The beast has black, cloudy, eyes. It's head is covered in nails, and it's skin looks to be severely scarred. It's body just... Bends in ways a pony's shouldn't. You turn to look and Lyra.

She's cradled in the corner, making herself as small as possible. She's under a desk, shivering. You can tell she's crying, and you're holding a bloody knife, probably not making a nice scene here.

Wait, bloody knife. You take that thought a step further.

I never killed before. You continue your thought process.

I just killed another form of life, for the first time. I just stabbed somepony to death... They are curled up on the floor to prove it, they're dead, and they wouldn't be without you.

Your legs give out beneath you, and you feel like vomiting. But the pain in your back beats you to it and you black out, before falling asleep.