Twilight and Fluttershy came to a halt at the edge of White Tail woods, as the princess took a moment to light up her horn and lift the pad she had brought with her.

“Well, I would wager, the best place to start would be where you found him,” Twilight said as she glanced over to Fluttershy.

The yellow Pegasus nodded, already looking around. She took a moment to look over the ground before stopping just inside the first line of trees at the path.

“Here. This is where he as when I found him.” Fluttershy bit her lip as she looked down seeing a small red spot that had soaked into the ground.

Fluttershy unconsciously took a step back.

Twilight walked over, still looking over her pad of notes, not realizing she was stepping right over the spot.

“Well, in that case, we should go ahead and split up and start looking through the woods, can some of the animals help out?”

Fluttershy gave an affirmative squeak, to which Twilight, now looking up at the trees and bushes scattered about. “Spike should be here soon to help out, unfortunately, it’s just us. Rainbow Dash said she would swing by to help when she was done with today’s weather schedule.”

With that, Twilight began to head off in a direction, before calling over her shoulder, “Let’s meet back here in about an hour, okay? We should be able to cover enough ground by then.”

Fluttershy walked past the spot, the scent of blood still faintly in the air, unsettling her stomach ever so slightly.

With a sigh, Fluttershy began to walk through the woods, occasionally looking around a bush, or speaking to a rabbit, or squirrel, or some other animal for help.

It wasn’t long before a few animals ere able to lead Fluttershy over to a bush. Looking around, she saw a large black bag, practically as big as she was, if not a little bigger. Once she saw it, laying partially on the bush, she looked up.

As she thought about it, she felt this spot was familiar. It took her a few minutes to think before she realized she was only a few feet from where Discord had taken her to the other world through one of his portals.

“Dissy... Did you do this?” She asked her thoughts out loud.

The spark that Terren had felt had drawn something to the fore of his mind. It was troubling him, he could briefly feel a strange, sense of tiredness, and a bit of pain as well. It passed as quickly as it happened, and when Twilight had made her comment and saw how she appeared, he thought it strange, but his mind seemed to connect that what he experienced had come from her.

What had really got to him was a memory that had come to his attention. It was not a pleasant one, and for some time he tried to push it away and focus on something more important.

When he had crawled back into bed and closed his eyes, a wave of exhaustion and confusion came over him. But worst of all was the memory would not be silenced. He was not able to hold back, and cried out, doing his best to muffle it.

Off the side of a highway was a nearly hidden building, of an old sky blue color, countered with brown lining around corners still made of old wood, and window shutters.

Much of the paint of the building was already old, having once been a small hotel with a comfortable cowboy feeling, its whole shape that like a square horseshoe. The only disconnection of the buildings was the entrance, which was laid over a wide dirt drive with small rocks, leaving one the feeling of leaving behind the civilized world for something older and simpler.

Often only the form of the building would show marks of time with mud splashes on the lower side from vehicles splashing through as they entered, or black marks higher up towards the roof from the exhaust of larger vehicles passing. As well as a sole payphone set by the entrance just a few feet away.

The old hotel rooms were still used often as it had been refurbished into a shelter of sorts for those who needed help, or those who had no place else to go.

The center courtyard, surrounded by blue walls, windows, doors, and the rest of the dirt and stone path had only a few trees; the largest of which was an old oak that remained steadfast in the center.

This tree was no accompanied by a few newer tools of entertainment for children. A swing set, monkey bars, and a rusted seesaw which was no longer used in the normal sense as it was meant for.

More trees could be found some yards from the center of the courtyard, as the grass of this area continued on further back to a smooth tree line accompanied by bushes, and ivy vines.

Those who could be found here were an assortment though usually could be known to share troubles, and thus, they congregated here.

On this day, the clouds seemed to draw in over the former bright blue sky of spring going to summer, almost reflecting the feelings of the children don below who did not play with abandon, but rather meandered out of boredom. A few other children had recently moved on, another grounded, and yet another had not been seen for roughly a week.

It had been said that his mother had been in the hospital after an accident and he and his elder sister were there with her at her side.

As the children continued, the door to one of the rooms opened, and out stepped a young boy. His frame thin, almost stick-like, to any observer, pale skin, almost white. His features would be only slightly unusual, if not for his head of thick fiery red hair.

To many he appeared funny, for at this time few had seen a person with red hair, much less two, as it was often seen he took after his mother.

Terren was about six years old and had been with his mom since they had left his dad years before.

He began to make his way slowly toward the courtyard to meet up with the other children, now that his grounding had ended.

His only countenance reflected sorrow, his eyes barely receding from being bloodshot from all the crying he had done.

He had only wandered a few steps from the door to his current home before he stopped to look at a specific door only to down from his own.

To say Terren missed his friend, whom he thought was in the hospital with his mother was an understatement, and brought a few more tears to his eyes.

He looked down to the ground and stood there, shaking, fighting the tears as best he could, though they still fell.

He felt as though everything was his fault. The week previous he had gone to see his friend only to nearly be bowled over by an older man in a rush.

His friend had admitted his dad had returned to take him and his mom home. But, did not want to go and listen to the yelling anymore.

There had been a misunderstanding, at least, it seemed that way. Terren had been sure his friends dad had been a bad man. When he had pointed out the proof, he got in trouble and was grounded.

Now that he was out, he wanted to forget everything that had happened. Those first two nights he had barely slept having heard a lot of fighting that had penetrated the quiet night.

Right after that was when he heard his friend was gone, possibly at the hospital.

Looking up and trying to dry his face, Terren did his best to not be as upset as he was.

As he looked up, a vehicle turned into the drive of the shelter, going far too fast. He jumped back, fearing he was going to get hit.

He watched as the car screeched to a halt just in front of his friends door.

When he saw the mom get out, his spirits lifted. He hoped he could see his friend, but when he came up to the mom as she made her way around she seemed startled to see him there.

The look of shock quickly turned to a look of rage and anger.

“H-hi... I-I’m sorry about what happened. Can I see-”

“You, you horrible little monster. Do you realize what you did? I talked to my husband who proudly admitted he was cheating on me. He told me he only wanted me with him so he could have a maid. He only wants his kids near with us so he doesn’t have to pay child support. This is all your fault if you had kept your DAMN MOUTH SHUT,” the longer she went on, the louder she got, now towering over Terren, and finished screaming at him. She couldn’t seem to continue as she had now gotten too upset.

Terren had stepped back, tears streaming from his eyes, but despite that, he had long since gone past being scared, and even terrified. He fell back to what had always helped him before, the same thing she was using on him, anger.

“I said I was sorry, I never meant to hurt you. I was just trying to help. I’m sorry, just please, can I see my friend.”

“You little bastard. You are nothing, you are not an adult, you are only that bitch’s little monster. You ruined my life and my family. I never want you around me, or my son ever again as long as you live.”

Another friend lost, but this time instead of being forced back out into the streets, this time, he had done something bad. Something horrible.

Terren took more steps back, his head hung low, his shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes as he began to cry, choking out a few sobs.

By now, the other children had long since stopped and stared, seemingly unsure of what to do.

A few adults even began to make their way out of their rooms, the last was Terrens mother, a slightly larger red headed woman.

She had been asleep until she heard the yelling, she came out to look for her son out of concern and fear.

‘So, you cried then, and you cry now. How pathetic. When will you ever grow up? Look at you, well into your thirties and you still allow this.'

His quiet sobs had choked out as he laid silently, allowing his tears to dampen and stain the bed.

Terren growled inwardly at the voice in his mind. ‘Go away. I am in no mood for this crap anymore. You’re right, I am too old for this, just as I’m too old for you.’

Closing his eyes tight, he pushed away at the pain in him, along with the memory.

Try as he might, though, it took much more as it seemed his mind kept returning the memory stronger, always slightly altering it to make it darker, and worse. With this, Terren began to grow frustrated and angry with himself. He gripped the pillow hard, working his mind to will away the memory.

When time passed and he seemed to fail, he began to work to clear his mind as he had before, willing the sensation of floating in water. It worked finally, to push the memory away.

Opening his eyes, Terren let out a sigh, as he felt himself relax ever so slightly, the heat within him slowly dissipating. The problem he faced now, was he felt tired, and drained, as though the anger within him was a literal fire and had burned him from the inside out. The feeling of being consumed by this anger felt familiar, too familiar as he slowly began to feel a headache pounding away in his head.

‘Perhaps it’s true though. With everything that has happened in your life, being called a monster may be the truth of who and what you are. Any time you try and be a part of someone’s life, even as a friend, you fail. So many have come to you and told you ho badly you affected them.’

Terren let out a groan, ‘How long is this going to last. You have no proof. Yes, I made mistakes as a kid, but that was because I didn’t think. I came to know that, and understand it over time.’

It felt strange to think this at the voice, but as he thought it, he knew it to be true.

‘Sure, but often there were moments where others looked at you angrily just as she did. Others who have called you a monster. Maybe that was why so many hated you the moment you were born.’

Gritting his teeth, Terren worked to push the voice away, but it persisted, even as it faded.

‘Someone like you, a monster, hated since birth by all others. No one to love, or to love you. How long will it be before those in this place hate you? You know the truth of what this place is.’

Terren opened his eyes in shock, at this. He stopped pushing the voice away as his mind turned to where he was now. He still didn’t know where he was.

He felt something, almost as if the voice he was beginning to argue against was smiling. No, more like a smirk.

He frowned to himself since there was no one and nothing else there with him.

‘It’s been a while. But, the memories are there. Even those smarter than you have said insanity and mental illness was passed through genes. A family who believe in incest, racism, abuse, all as a distorted form of love. Would it not be surprising if in fact, you were laying in a padded room? If you think about it, as complex as you know the mind to be, Terren, you know sometimes the mind can perceive things differently at different levels.

‘Then again, you’re no doctor. Not even a head shrink, of course, you never could be anything like that. I mean, let’s face it, e already know how stupid you are. People tell you all the time ho stupid you really are. What if the truth were, that when you woke up, you woke up in a delusion. But in reality, you were in a hospital, tied and chained to a bed. Those pony things could have been real doctors, they even said you were violent, before-’

“Stop, enough. I can’t listen to this anymore.” Terren said, quietly.

He was angry, but it wasn’t the same anger that left him feeling burned through and through from the inside out. This as more of an anger that seemed to come from one who was defeated.

As the voice seemed to try and continue, Terren turned over and raised up in the bed, eyes squeezed shut. He placed his fists to the side of his head and began to hit them against the side of his head just above his ears.

The jarring sensation quickly developed into pain as he repeated his phrase, “Stop it, stop it, stop it...” He continued this like repeating a mantra, till he was left feeling dizzy and sick to his stomach.

As he stopped, he could tell the voice was gone, and he let out a breath of relief. That was until another memory came to the front of his mind.

He didn’t know where it came from, but in it, he knew he had been in a hospital for being considered mentally unbalanced. Potentially insane, even.

As he wandered through that memory, another came. Another memory of being in a different hospital, for the same reason, but that one had been the result of something else transpiring altogether.

Both times he had felt uncomfortable in the hospitals, they felt alien, cold, and uncaring to him.

“No, no more, I’m too tired to deal with this. I- I can’t...” more tears began to fall as he felt within him, his strength of will slip away. He gave in, to the possibility, but still he had to keep a small flame of hope alive that it as all a lie.

As he tried to think, his mind now seeming to jump from one thing to another, another voice came to him.

This one was not as harsh or mean as the last. In fact, it even seemed like his own thought, and so he allowed it to continue.

‘What if this is for the best? Everyone in society will consider someone as unbalanced as a danger to themselves, and to others.’

Terren glanced down to the padded cuffs that were still hanging at the sides of the hospital bed.

‘Maybe if I just stay here, it will help me, and everyone else will be safer for it.’

Terren shivered, before looking up. The clean, sterile white walls began to seem familiar, and alien.

He began to feel small, closed in. He needed to stand, and to walk, he needed to know he wasn’t locked away. The feeling of being enclosed had always been something that bothered him.

He knew the reason, but he could not remember it. So horrible was that memory, it had been locked away within his psyche, and he hoped to never encounter it ever again.

He began to breathe heavily and worked to try and keep himself as calm as possible.

With shaking limbs, he moved himself to the edge of the bed, and carefully placed his feet on the floor. It took him a few minutes, as he continued to shake all over, from being scared and feeling so cold.

It took so long because of how slow he was going, but it helped him to focus fully on his movements. As he finally straightened his body, now shaking less as he slowly brought his mind back under some semblance of control.

His body still shook, he realized now how cold the tile floor was on his feet as he only had socks to cover them.

He made sure he could stand on his on, without the need to rely on the bed before he attempted to walk.

Once he was sure he could make it on his own, he drew his arms up, shuddering and began trying to warm himself by running his hands over his sides, just under his arms.

Carefully he made his way to the window and looked out. With more awareness, he could see that the floor he was on was too high to get out by the window. So, that left him trying to find out either when the hospital would be willing to release him, or sneaking out.

He turned and looked over his shoulder at the door, and wondered what kind of security they had. The last hospital he was at, at least in the last place he had called home, had several officers, or security guards, who were more than willing to manhandle him or any others.

Terren set his jaw, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, he never did. It was something that scared him, but over the years, he began to hate himself for not wanting to hurt others as it left him feeling so weak and unable to fend for himself.

That was part of the reason he had taken his own money and left to live out on the streets, wandering till he could reach enough woodlands he could try and fend for himself with as little interaction with other people as possible.

He had convinced himself it had been for the best to keep others safe while he dealt with himself.

‘Who am I kidding? I don’t do it to keep others safe. I do it so I don’t end up in this place where they control me. Where I can’t make my own decisions, where I can’t do anything without someone watching me.’

Terren’s eyes wandered the floor as he considered this thought, his focus turned inward, making him seem distant.

Was it true? Was that really his thought, was that really how he felt? Was all of this because he could not cope, and he forced himself into a type of exile to avoid dealing with his problems?

He knew as he had grown he came to learn how to run away from things. Learned from his mother as she would often not be able to deal with things that came up and would always pick him up and leave.

With a heavy sigh, Terren brought himself out of his on dark thoughts and laid his head against the window.

He could feel the warmth from the sunlight and smiled to himself. He was no longer shaking from the cold.

As he turned his attention fully to the outside world, he could see figures down below moving about, some leaving the hospital, some coming in.

In fact, as he tilted his head slightly in thought, he recognized the color of a few. A purple form, beside a pink and yellow one. Though no, they were accompanied by a smaller, slightly fatter purple and green figure on two legs, and another pony shape that seemed to have a chromatic front and back and was hanging in the air.

This one, with wings spread out, looked like a piece of the sky just decided to separate itself from the rest of the atmosphere and came don to the ground, along with two pieces of a rainbow.

Author's Note

Well, a few things.

If there are any words missing the 'W', it's cause the key on my laptop is sticking. Having some issues with that. Usually, after a bit of use, it tends to unstick itself but it's been giving me problems for a while now.

Secondly, the description for the Shelter, that whole part is,a s I tried to explain in the story a aprt of Terren's memories from when he was a child. Had to work quite a bit on that whole bit. Spent several hours actually tryign to get it just right to make sense, even going back making sure everyone udnerstood he was the little kid when I did a read over and realized jsut throwing a lot of he's and him's around was horrible.

Thirdly, I apologize for any issues anyone has with the large spacing between events. I don't know what to use for breaks rather than jsut a bland line that aparently people at times have problems with. If I can figure something out, then I will see about going through and inserting those to make it easier to udnerstand when soemthing in the story in altering, or shifting.

Lastly, and this is the bigges tissue of all. I apologize for my form of writing. I kno it's fairly bad quite often. I don't tend to write things out ahead of time for any kind of brainstormign till I am already writing the story itself. Also I have a abd history of tryign to do too many corrections on a story when tryign to wrok it out of a first draft hich leads to me jsut giving up and tossign the story.
So, please understand, the stories are bad because I don't write past a first draft, and don't brianstorm ahead of time. Which also explains my really horrible updating on any stories at all.
All I really do is jsut rite up the story, till I am comfortable I have out what I feel I need to get out, copy paste it to FiM, then go through and try and make corrections. Sometimes altering a paragraph or sentence here and there.

Oh, and before I forget, if the paragraphs that are italicized and colored are a problem, let me know and I will try and change the colors to something more viewable, or jsut change them back to black and white font. I had them set specifically in these colors for reasons, as a sense to show kind of a mind that is having difficulty keeping things together. As it were.

At least, this is the best I can explain what is going on atm. Sorry.

Additionally, I feel I am going to have to set up another tag. Until I get the next chapter written up, I won't know for sure which one just yet.