Fear and Loathing in Neigh Orleans

Chapters

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Part One

PART ONE

We were somewhere around Manechac when the drugs began to take hold.

I remember saying something like “I feel a bit nervous, maybe you should drive.” And suddenly, the world slowed down around us, as if we were trapped inside some godawful time capsule. And a voice was screaming, “Pull over! For fuck’s sake, pull over!”

Then it was quiet again. My partner had her muzzle pressed against the window, staring out at the city as if it was going to come in the car and bite her. I slowed down to a crawl, my heart thudding in my chest like a chorus of ravenous dwarves banging cutlery on a table for a round of drinks. Jefferson Airship blared at full volume on the radio, the bass from White Rabbit like a shot of adrenaline straight to my heart. We pulled into the parking lot of some gaudy, miserable-looking department store, slamming the gear into park before the car shuddered and ceased its infernal running.

We weren’t even halfway to Neigh Orleans yet, not a third of the way, even, and the acid had already kicked into full force. The sky had turned into some sort of melting grey sea like something out of a drunken art student’s half-assed forgery of an Impressionist painting. And all around us, the trees had turned into some sort of twisted, green pixelated smears resembling a screencap from a five year old’s Minecraft server. Simply put, I was not leaving anytime soon.

We wandered around the parking lot in a daze, swaying and bobbing and attempting to look normal. The cement had turned into something resembling an oil slick, all colourful and shiny and constantly moving. I had that creeping feeling, of course, that somepony was watching me, paying attention to my every step, just waiting for it to be painfully obvious I was on potent psychedelics. But who? I looked around, and the only one there was a couple of bored-looking shoppers, what looked like a retired, henpecked bank cashier, and a lonely cop car halfway down the other end of the street. Oh shit, was he looking at us? Did he see me? Could he read my thoughts? Wait, why was I saying this out loud?

“What are you mumbling about?” my partner asked, looking up at the sky with an enraptured, unnaturally wide smile. I shook my head, glancing back towards the department store.

“Never you mind. Let’s get what we were looking for. And for Celestia’s sake, please act natural.” She just shrugged, tearing her gaze away from the sky with a disappointed frown.

“Hey, I can do that just fine. You’re the one who’s all twitchy and paranoid. Relax a little, man.” I wasn’t going to argue with that, but I had a reason, dammit! We were in a public place, surrounded by prying eyes, watching, waiting, observing. We had to get in, and then get out, soon.

Doing my best to look perfectly normal, thank you very much, I strode into the store, looking around at what kind of assorted items there were. It was rather difficult to get a decent idea, though, as the obnoxious shelves would not stop constantly moving. I would duck into one aisle and find what I was looking for had moved to another one entirely, or had moved to a shelf above my head, or had simply reappeared halfway across the store. It was getting horrendously irritating, and I wouldn’t stand for it. Bags of potato chips are supposed to stand still. Wait, why were there even potato chips in a department store in the first place? The fact that the fluorescent lights overhead were all winking and blinking and flashing like epileptic Hearth’s Warming lights did not help the situation much.

“You know, I already got the stuff, Silver,” said a voice from far in the distance. I turned around to find myself almost nose-to-nose with my partner, who was already pushing along a shopping cart loaded up with all the things I’d been looking for, but had been unable to find properly. I will never understand how she did it; it was impossible for me to find anything when everything would not stop shifting around just to taunt me.

“Fine, let’s just go then.” I began to step towards the doorway.

“I wanna get some popcorn, first. And maybe one of those big pretzels,” she said with a pout.

I just barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes. My partner has rarely been able to control her fondness for junk food, especially not while under the influence of mind-altering drugs. She always seemed to have cravings at the worst possible times. And it always drove me bonkers. I’ve always been the kind of stallion that, in that kind of situation, just wants to get everything over and done with as quickly as possible so I could retreat to the safe haven of our home. “Seriously, Amber? Now?”

“Yes, now.”

I definitely didn’t want to cause a scene, but my paranoia was starting to rise. Were the shoppers wondering why she was craving these while pushing a cart full of food and supplies already? Were they wondering why I was so insistent to get home? Would the cashier by the popcorn machine notice her enormous, blown-up pupils in a brightly-lit building and make the connection that she was tripping balls? I had at least taken the precaution to put on sunglasses, first. “Amber, we have to get home.”

“I’m buying popcorn and a pretzel first,” she said insistently.

I clapped a hoof to my forehead with a groan, before heading towards the door. “Fine, but I’ll be waiting in the car! Don’t attract too much attention.”

“Please, you know me better than that! I won’t.” She wouldn’t, normally, but I was worried she might end up seeing even weirder things than I and have a freak-out. I wasn’t sure if she’d taken any benzos to stay calm, and didn’t want to take any chances. For all my worry and paranoia, I have never had an honest-to-gods freakout leading into an introspective four-hour nightmare on acid, though I’ve had pretty bad experiences. I’ve always been the one who has had to keep my cool under pressure, or else risk ‘bad things’ of an unknown and unpredictable, yet terrible, nature occurring.
After a wrong turn around a couple of other stores I’m sure were not there at first, I found my way to the car, only to realise it was locked. Of course it was; Amber had the keys, this time. Which left me standing here. Alone. In the parking lot. Trying to look casual. With that cop car still halfway down the street.

Mother of Faust, this was not my day, was it?

Soon enough, mercifully, I heard the tell-tale sound of a shopping cart behind me, and my head whipped around to see Amber strolling along rather merrily. There was a click, and I scrambled to get the back door open as she practically threw the contents of the cart into the back seat. I moved to the front, ready to start the car again, when I realised something vitally important; I was not in any condition to drive. “Shit, er... Amber? Could you...?”

She looked over to me with a glint of panic in her eyes. “Wait, me? I don’t remember the way home, since that roadblock was set up. I’m too fucked-up to do this by myself.”

Shit, I’d forgotten about that. The normal, and quickest route we took back home was currently blocked by a large roadblock with more than a few police cars. Not the way we wanted to go, for sure. “Er... wait, I know the way! I can give you directions.”

She looked at me a little skeptically, tearing her eyes away from the slowly melting and re-forming dashboard. “You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure! Now switch seats with me.” Instead of getting out like normal ponies, we instead tried to climb over the divider between the seats before realising this wasn’t going to work. Whoever said acid makes one more clear-headed wasn’t factoring in anyone taking more than one hit. It’s always made me feel considerably less thoughtful, at least.

Quickly, we corrected our mistakes, me sliding into the passenger side and her on the driver’s. With a dull rumble and a few sputters, the car sparked to life, belching smoke from the exhaust like an overpacked hookah bowl. Her car, an old Ford Minotaur, wasn’t in the best of shapes, so I was always worried the great dented death machine would give out on us at the worst possible time. With immense hesitation, the car pulled out of the parking lot and began trundling down the street once more, the sound of Mojo Risin’s “The End” caressing our ears.

We were halfway back home when I felt the most curious sensation, starting somewhere in my stomach and spreading into the rest of my body like warm water poured straight into my veins. I was sweating profusely; my blood is too thick for this climate. At first I thought I was floating above my seat, steadily rising through the air and out through the top of the car. Then I felt my heart drop to the bottom of my chest, as if I was suddenly falling. “Oh shit, something’s happening,” I muttered, trying my hardest to keep calm. I felt myself slump forward, and for one terrified moment, I thought I was going to fall through the dashboard and onto the street below.

I glanced over to see my partner, a look of blank, all-encompassing horror in her eyes as she continued driving. I could see that she was ready to freak out, her hooves pressed tightly on either side of the wheel. I felt as if we were being sucked into a whirlpool, pounding drums and droning organs and dark, distant words being whispered into my ears as they swirled and churned all around us.

“Ride the highway west, baby... Ride the snake, ride the snake... to the lake, the ancient lake, baby...” I snapped back to reality with a jolt, as I quickly realised that if I was feeling like this, probably so was she. We couldn’t stop, not yet, or we’d risk being caught, or worse. “Listen to me, alright? Just follow my directions, and we’ll get home. Don’t think, don’t react- just listen. You understand me?” She didn’t nod, but I knew she understood me. “Good. Keep driving, and I’ll tell you where to turn up ahead.”

We continued down the highway, though my fear continued to rise. Somepony had to have noticed we were driving a little erratically, right? Wait, were we even driving erratically? I couldn’t tell, at this point. As we approached the usual street we turned on, I noticed the police cars, and the roadblock, were, to my horror, still there. Instinctively, Amber started to make the turn. “Not here!” I hissed, pointing straight ahead. “Keep going; it’s the next turn!” She corrected the mistake just in time, continuing down the highway as the music continued to blare in our ears. “The blue bus is calling us... the blue bus is calling us... driver, where you takin’ us?”

As we approached the turn, by a mostly-abandoned gas station, I began to hear the faint sound of sirens behind me. I stiffened, my breathing speeding up so fast I thought I was going to pass out from lack of oxygen before we ever got caught. “Oh shit, oh shit, turn here, now!” A bit clumsily, she made the turn, veering briefly into the other lane before straightening up. We were going down the road at top speed now, or at least as close as we could get without risking being pulled over for speeding. Though I had to wonder, what was the point if we were being chased? I knew there were police some distance behind us, as I keep seeing flashing blue and red lights out of the corner of my eyes, as if somepony was strobing a flashlight beneath my eyelids. “Come on, come on, or the cops will catch us!” I muttered, my forehooves tapping against the dashboard nervously.

This was the end, I thought. This was the fucking end. We were going to be arrested, then booked into jail for DUI at least, assuming they didn’t search our house. Or, worse, we were going to crash and die in some horrible, undignified, rain-sodden ditch almost to our house. This was a bad idea, this was a bad fucking idea. I should never have thought we could go out about our normal business before the acid kicked in. Sweet mother of Celestia, we were going to-

And then, it happened. For those of you who have never been on any psychedelic, it is difficult to say what ‘it’ was. But I will try my best. The world seemed to... melt into itself. At first, I felt myself becoming part of the seat, then the car, then my partner as well. All became one, one consciousness in this moment of perfect synergy. There was no longer this fleshy body, these hooves, this esoteric system of veins and nerves, gears and wires, blood and bone and oil and petrol. There was one being, one consciousness in control, one car, one pony. There was only we, no I anymore.

We drove the car back home in a blur of rushing wind and racing colours and passing through several tunnels of warped and distorted time before appearing back out again. We worked together in perfect coordination, her driving and me giving instructions. It wasn’t as if we could read each other’s minds; that would be too simple. We would have needed minds of our own to do that. Instead, we were of one mind, one soul, one breath.

Finally, we pulled into our driveway as the music came to its haunting conclusion. “The end of nights we tried to die... This... is... the... end...” As we stepped out of our car, I felt myself stumble as I walked towards the door. Wait, I? Holy Luna, there was an “I” again!

I might have stayed there for hours, pondering this strange sensation of wholeness becoming separate again, but I was sweating up a storm and eager to get inside. After fumbling with the key for a few minutes, the front door swung open, and we were met with wonderful, blissful, cold air once more.

As I stepped inside, I found my partner right behind me, breathing heavily. “You felt that too, right?” she said, her tone somewhere between awed and desperate. “You fucking felt that too? You felt it? It wasn’t just my imagination?”

At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what I had felt. I wasn’t exactly able to put it into words, as my mind was still reeling and twirling and pirouetting from the sheer overwhelmingness of the experience. “I... I felt something, I know that,” I said feebly, knowing that wasn’t the answer she was looking for as her eyes went wide, looking like she was about to cry.

“You felt it, too, right?” she asked insistently. “Like we were one pony, back there in the car. Like our minds merged together?”

I backed up a few steps, going towards the hallway. “Er, yes, I guess so.”

“You guess so?” Ohhh shit, she looked like she was either thinking I was lying to her or about to burst into tears. Neither was a very good outcome.

“Yes, I felt it. Now come on, let’s go to your room. You look like you’re about to freak out.” I headed towards the door, doing my best to nudge her along with me.

“You felt it?” Dammit, she definitely looked like she was going to cry, that note of desperation in her voice making me even more worried. Amber sad was bad enough, but Amber sad, desperate, and twisted on probably four-hundred micrograms of high-powered, top quality 7-LSP was a different thing entirely.

“Yes, Amber, I felt it. I’m not just saying that because it’s what you want to hear, if that’s what you’re thinking. Now come on- you don’t want the acid to switch gears again, do you?”

She shook her head no, before adding quietly, one more time, “You did feel it, right? It wasn’t just vibrations from the car or something like that?”

I sighed, resisting the urge to just pull her towards her room. Luna’s mane, what the hell did it matter if it was caused by car vibrations or not? It felt absolutely wonderful while it was happening, and now it was over. There was no reason to stand here and speculate about why it happened. “Yes, Amber, I did.”

“I want to go back in the car and test it out, to see if it happens again.”

Luna’s mane, what was she on about? Get back in the car? To test to see if that sensation was repeatable? I had absolutely no desire to be outside again, much less her. I knew she’d almost had a panic attack back at the store, and I had no desire to see the possibility of her going outside, then running around the neighbourhood screaming hysterically about parasprites and fruit bats and bad vibrations at the top of her lungs. Granted, she had never actually done that sort of thing, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

You might be able to turn your back on a pony, but you can never turn your back on a drug.

Reluctantly, I finally got her to come along with me, and we finally collapsed on her bed with a sigh of relief, the ceiling shrinking and breathing and shooting streaks of rainbow overhead. I heard the sound of a locked box rattling nearby, then a hinge opening, and a quick gulp of water, followed by a sigh of relief. I finally was able to relax, myself, as I knew a potential crisis had been averted.

The box in question looked like the inside of a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of prime smoking herbs, two foot-long cuttings of mescaline-filled cactus, five sheets of high-powered 7-LSP blotters, a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, screamers, poppers, a quart of vodka, quart of gin, case of hard cider, and a number of small grey bags filled with an ambiguous white powder whose labels’ meaning escaped me. Not that we needed all that, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

The thing that worried me the most was, well, everything but the acid, the mescaline and the herbs. Psychedelics were one thing, and a very useful thing at that, but Celestia only knew what was in those bags of snow-white powder. Call me stupid, but I’ve always been of the idea that a drug that looks identical to something else, and that I cannot prepare myself, is too dangerous to take. I did not trust some foreign lab in Chineigha or the like not to put something in there to make it cheaper, or to not label it correctly at all. Run-of-the-mill hallucinogens might make me feel like I was dying, but they wouldn’t actually kill me, or physically harm me at all, potential psychological scarring aside. I couldn’t say the same for the rest, so I tended to stay away from anything I couldn’t identify for sure. Which was, in this case, almost everything.

The pinion was the worst, from what I had seen; there is nothing more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a pony in the depths of a pinion binge. Whether white powder or balls of sticky red tar, I never had any desire to get into that rotten stuff, or any of its assorted cousins in the opiate family. The closest I had come was Kratos, a kind of low-powered, plant-based quasi-opiod that managed to put somepony into a sort of dreamy, half-asleep state, but without the potential to overdose. The fact that the mixture, a green powder to be made into tea, was so utterly vile that nopony could possibly drink it all at once without gagging definitely helped to keep me away from it. Give me some proper, nice-tasting and non-lethal herbs, and I’d be content.

The rest of the day went by either very quickly or extremely slowly- I don’t quite remember. All I remember is I spent most of it in the bed beside Amber, staring in rapt fascination at the brightly coloured poster above her bed changing colours as if we were stuck in the top of some bizarre psychedelic lighthouse seen through kaleidoscope glasses. Eventually, I found myself able to drift off to sleep, in the midst of some unknown twilight between night and day.

Part Two

I was in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo, and someone had been giving booze to these goddamn things!

Well, that’s not quite accurate, actually. It was more of a menagerie than a zoo, and I’m pretty sure some of the booze had actually been water before it had the nerve to change into alcohol.

At any rate, we were near the bar of the old Mariner’s Inn in downtown Neigh Orleans, sipping our drinks and watching the colourful crowd around us. It was a loud one, too, since the customers wouldn’t stop roaring and groaning and chirping like a rickety table dragging over tile. No sense of common decency, these ponies... lizard... things. I would have told them to quiet down, but I’ve never been one to intentionally draw attention to myself while I’m twisted. Makes other ponies suspect things. And that is always a bad idea.

The anchors and fishing nets nailed onto the far wall had begun to dance and ripple to the rhythm of some godawful country song that sounded like a dying yodeler strumming a guitar he hadn’t realised he’d broken ten minutes ago. I know it sounds kind of ironic for an earth pony working in a rural area to despise country music, but buck me if I doesn’t sound like the same goddamn song a hundred times over.

The other reptilian denizens of this fine establishment didn’t seem to care, though, as a number of old cooks and retired schoolmarms who looked like they’d crawled out of a cover of Senior Living had started dancing across the wooden floor like it was their tenth wedding anniversary. This would have normally kept my attention, if it wasn’t for the large group at the table across from me that was busy feasting noisily on the hearts of their victims without a care in the world. I swear, some pon... liz... ponizards? Some ponizards didn’t know how to eat with their mouths closed. And all the blood they were getting on the floor! Impossible to walk in this muck, I thought.

“Order some rain boots,” I muttered to nopony in particular. “Or else we’ll never get out of here alive. These lizards are everywhere.”

“Lizards?” my partner asked, her ears folding as she looked around warily. “Please don’t talk to me about lizards right now. You know what that kind of talk does to me.” I could see she was getting nervous, but why? There was nothing particularly frightening going on at the moment. Er, well, at least it wasn’t frightening for me, though it probably should have been. Truth be told, I was more annoyed at these goddamn animals for making such a fuss.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “We can walk through the blood on the floor no problem. Just imagine it as very red mud, and you should be fine.”

“Blood? Why the fuck is there blood on the floor?” she blurted out, earning some confused looks towards her. She twitched slightly, her breathing speeding up before she grabbed me by the shoulder, turning me to look at a table to my right. She pointed across the room to a group that seemed to be staring at us with their beady yellow reptile eyes. “You see them over there? They’ve spotted us, Silver!”

I peered a little closer, noting that they just looked like the starving remnants of an alligator family reunion that had been kicked out before dinnertime. A large placard stood in the middle of their table, which said something like, Bill Hoof’s Thirtieth Annual Staff Party. “Don’t mind them,” I said, nodding sagely. “It’s just a bunch of used car dealers from down the road.”

“B-but they’re staring,” she stage-whispered. “And they... HOLY LUNA THAT MARLIN IS COMING RIGHT AT ME!” She ducked beneath the table, only her tail visible beyond the edge of the tablecloth. “Don’t come near me. No no no, it’s not gonna come near me. I knew that evil fish would come back for revenge. This is what I get for ordering a fish fry at a Salad Station.” Oh right, I’d forgotten most pegasi had a taste for fish. Never been one for it, myself, despite living near the coast.

Looking around to see the glares directed at me by hungry, pissed-off ponizards, I gave a sheepish chuckle before shrugging. “Sorry folks, she’s just had a little too much to drink. I’ll take her home soon, I promise. Go back to your... meals.” Though there was some grumbling, the customers gradually went back to their chatting, dancing, and gorging on the hearts of virgins and the blood of newborn foals. You know, the normal diet of a growing brood of reptiles on a boring Saturday night.

I will never understand their culture, but hey, who am I to judge?

Frowning, I lifted the hem of the tablecloth to see my partner shaking. I could tell the Fear was starting to come upon her. “Amber, dear, what are you doing?”

“Hiding from that goddamn marlin! Did you see it? He wanted a taste of me, bad!”

“Amber, let’s get out of here. The marlin can’t bother you in our room.” She poked her head out from under the table.

“You sure?” I would have chuckled at the absurdity of this situation if it wasn’t so serious a moment.

“Yes, I’m sure, Amber. Now come on, let’s get home and away from that nasty fish. I’ll even give you all the tartar sauce you need to defend yourself with.”

“Tartar sauce?” She perked right back up at that. “Honey mustard too?”

“Yes dear, there will be plenty of honey mustard.”

After a moment of hesitation, she crawled out from under the table, brushing herself off before stumbling towards the door. “Come on then! I want all the honey mustard for that goddamn marlin!”

Hoping that nopony else had heard that, I just made what I hoped was a confused and deeply apologetic gesture towards the bar, before turning to follow her out the door.

By the time we got up to our room, my hallucinations were down to a tolerable level. In fact, I was sober enough to order us a pizza from Pizza Shack, and actually answer the door with only a modicum of problems. The delivery colt had a vaguely reptilian cast to his features, but I was no longer seeing huge alligators and purple dragons lumbering around in viscous pools of fresh blood.

As my partner wolfed down her half of the pizza, I lay on the bed, staring vacantly through the window and up at the sky. I thought I would have a decent view of the Quarter from here, but alas, it was not to be. Instead, there was a large sign blocking my view, advertising some washed-up insurance claim attorney whose name I didn’t read, as I was too busy looking over his ugly mug. He was a big fucker, I could tell, with both mane and teeth a little too white and a smile that oozed sleaze like the bathroom of a Bourbon Street nightclub. Come to think of it, he looked like the type you’d find in that sort of place, probably getting his rocks off with a five-bit hooker while ignoring his scowling, curler-wearing housewife back home.

My eyes followed the lines of his pinstriped suit, watching them ripple and undulate like streamers caught in a breeze. Or a snake, I thought. White snakes crawling and wriggling down the navy-blue fabric, serpents slithering across the white starched shirt, the deep crimson necktie wrapping tighter around his pudgy neck...

“Hey, you haven’t eaten your half yet! What are you looking at?” I snapped my head to my left to peer down at Amber sitting in the middle of the floor, looking up at me with a little bit of tomato sauce on her muzzle.

“There’s big snakes up in the sky, on that suit jacket.”

“Shoot them,” deadpanned my partner, going back to her half-finished slice of pizza.

“Not yet. I want to study their habits.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. Sure you don’t want your half of this?” She proffered the open pizza box that looked like a fondue had exploded on it. When my partner had asked for ‘extra cheese,’ boy had they gone above and beyond. Not that I was complaining, of course.

“Just put it in the mini-fridge for later. I can have it for breakfast in the morning.” I know it sounds rather vulgarian of me, but there really is nothing like reheated pizza for breakfast. It’s unhealthy, slightly greasy, and the cheese never melts right, but Sweet Celestia does it hit the spot.

My partner was looking a little green around the gills as she went to close the curtains, shaking her head. “You’ve got to quit this talk about snakes and lizards and blood. It’s making me sick. I was starting to get the Fear down there.”

Ah yes, the Fear. That creeping sense of impending doom that starts in the back of your head, before slowly spreading to the rest of you. Your heart races, your body shakes, and you feel like a trigger ready to shoot off running. It sometimes happens when on powerful drugs, generally followed by that tiny little precipice that separates a good trip from a bad one. You can usually pull yourself back from it if you get to somewhere you feel more comfortable soon, but once you go over the edge... only the mercy of the Powers-that-Be can help you at that point. Thankfully, I have never fully gone over the edge, though I’ve come close. Others have not been so lucky.

“Take some downers,” I suggested, turning over on the bed to look up at a painting of Jenny Square and the Cabildo above my head.

Amber wasn’t eating now, the pizza box closed and put away, but was pacing across the floor anxiously. “Where are they? I don’t remember.”

I sighed, glancing over to the corner of the room to see if I could make out anything by the light of dim table lamp. Sure enough, there was the little leather briefcase by the bathroom door. “In the briefcase.” I muttered. “Combination is Two-One-Seven. Check the little plastic baggie marked ‘Przlam.’ And no, I didn’t bring the pinion, so don’t bother looking for it.” Benzos was one thing, but I didn’t fancy her trying to calm her nerves with that stuff unless I wanted her practically immobile for the next several hours.

Whether or not she was looking for another one or not, she eventually found the right baggie, washing down a couple of the little blue tablets with a swig from the bottle of gin in the bag. I visibly winced. “Amber, you know you’re not supposed to take those with alcohol.”

She groaned and lazily waved a hoof at me, “I’ll be fine, Silvy. You just go get some sleep; I’ll join you in a few minutes.” I raised an eyebrow- that didn’t sound good.

“Amber, it’s nine o’clock at night. What else would you be doing?”

“Just going for a little flight around the block. Need to stretch my wings, you know? Wanna see what the city’s like from the sky like this- I’ll bet it’s gorgeous.”

My brow furrowed. She wasn’t seriously thinking of going out alone like this, was she? Tipsy, hallucinating and anxiety-free was not a good combination for being outdoors at night. Especially not by herself. “Amber, I don’t think that’s a good idea, since not even a half hour ago you were getting the Fear-”

“Silver, I just took a couple benzos, and my trip is wearing off. I’ll be fine.” She was already walking towards the door as she said it, slinging her brown saddlebag over her shoulder.

I started to climb off the bed, only managing to hit the carpet with a painful thump. Dear Celestia, I hate it when I forget I have four legs. “Amber, wait up-”

“I’ll be fine! See you in a half hour at most!” She called over her shoulder, the door slowly opening as I scrambled back up to my feet.

I ran towards the door, my heart pounding in my chest as the door swung closed behind her with an ominous click. “Wait, no, don’t leave me-”

I smacked into the door painfully, stumbling back onto the carpet. “...here.”

Shit.

Feeling the Fear rising, I swung open the door to see if I could go after her...

...only to see she was already gone. Oh no...

Swallowing, I closed the door, going back to lay on the bed. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this. She had gone off and left, and Gods only knew what could happen to her out there in her state. I didn’t think she’d have a freakout, but I did think she’d do something she would regret and just barely remember later.

As I laid there, my worries began to change from her to me. She was alone out there, but I was alone here. I’ve never really been able to cope with being alone in an altered state, you know? I mean, it was different when I was just by myself in a different room and Amber was just across the hall from me. I never felt really alone then, since I could just open my door at any time and find her. Now, I actually was, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep and forget about it.

The worst thing about acid is that you can’t sleep unless you’re on a downer. That same warm, metallic energy that makes you able to just walk around and enjoy the trip also leaves you jittery like you’ve just drank half a pot of coffee. You can stare at the ceiling or the walls or a spot on the carpet for hours, mesmerised, but you can’t sleep until the trip is over. I think I was only about halfway there at the time.

As the room started to grow larger around me, and my thoughts began to become more and more anxious, I knew it was time to find a downer. I climbed off the bed and rummaged through the briefcase, going past the benzos and the reds until I found a little vial with a yellow substance labelled ‘Kykeon.’ Now this was what I was looking for. Quickly, I uncorked the vial and downed half of it, shuddering a little at the slightly bitter taste in my mouth, as always. After a few minutes to let myself start feeling the effects, I sealed the vial again, before putting it back in the briefcase, and retiring to my bed.

Kykeon is... similar to, but not like other hallucinogens. It’s a sedative as well as a psychedelic. This means you can sleep while you’re taking it, but be prepared for very strange visions while you do. As I laid back, I began to feel a strange, almost electric sense of euphoria creeping through my veins. It isn’t a particularly intense sensation, but more of a distant, detached one, as if it were somepony else feeling it instead of you. The hallucinations shifted as well, the sharpened lines and distinct, vibrant colours beginning to blur and melt into each other. Shadows flickered across the room as I lazily waved my hoof in front of me, as if my vision was running at few frames per minute.

After a while, I tried to get up only to find my body wasn’t responding well, my limbs moving as if in slow motion. The clock on the bedside read ten o’clock, though I was sure an hour couldn’t have passed yet. Time works strangely in the world of Kykeon; or to be accurate, it often refuses to work properly at all. Realising the sedation had already set in, I simply sighed, and closed my eyes. When you buy the ticket, take the ride, I thought.

It was a strange sort of world behind my eyelids, all full of pulsing lights at the corners that disappeared as soon as I took notice. Lights twinkled across the dome of the sky, some warping and shifting out of existence to give birth to new ones every few minutes. Strange vines of green and white crept slowly across the void, blossoming and twisting around each other before dissolving into hails of green sparks that plummeted into the emptiness. As I looked down, I began to feel that creeping Fear at the back of my head again, that sinister, yet familiar voice that whispered, “You are alone.”

Instead of anxiety, though, I felt a powerful defiance well up in my chest. I controlled this world, not the Fear. If I didn’t want to be alone, I would not be. As I thought that, a figure took shape beside me, morphing and spinning like clay on a potter’s wheel. Once it had attained its final shape, I realised it was me. Well, not me exactly, but a facsimile of me. Between the pale grey coat, the unshorn fetlocks, the tinted yellow sunglasses and the off-white Panama Hat, he could be me. The eyes were off, though, a pale, watery blue instead of my dark green. This simply would not do, and I tried my hardest to focus on the right eye colour. But the stubborn eyes remained blue, to my consternation.

Oh well, I thought. No reason to be picky, right?

“Can you speak?” I asked the figure, tilting my head slightly to examine him. To my surprise, after a moment of silence, his eyes lit up, his body changing from rigidly immobile to animated. After glancing around at his surroundings, he spoke back.

“Yes, I can. My name is Doppel. Doppel Ganger. Some call me Gemellus. You may call me Gemel.”

I smiled, extending a hoof. “Pleased to meet you, Gemel. So... what are we going to do here?”

He tapped his chin for a second, before turning his head to the right. “We’re going there.”

In the distance, where there was once only the void, a bizarre structure devoid of all conventional geometry stood. It looked like a caricature of an old gothic university, rows and rows of arcades and crooked towers and vast, soaring spires that pointed straight into the sky. Stone and brick broke apart, reshaped itself, and molded itself into buildings as it wished, with little logic or order behind the placement. Rooftops sat on the ground, arches were upside down, doorways opened sideways in a weird sort of whirlwind of architectural madness. And in the midst of it was a massive archway, the length and breadth of it barred with an iron grille that glowed a pale red.

All in all, it looked thoroughly ominous. “We’re going there?” I repeated, incredulous.

“Yes. There.”

Sweet Mother of Faust. Maybe the Kykeon wasn’t such a good idea after all. Too late to turn back now, anyways.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Part Three

As I strode across the swirling, shifting expanse of the landscape, I became aware of a sound. No, not a sound, noise, and it was growing louder.

No, I can’t be hearing this! It must be the drug. Great Celestia, what was this sound, this brutal cacophony of noise and drones and pounding drums, echoing as if from the far away quire of a distant cathedral? This strange, eerie tinny sound that kept repeating over it, like the ticking of some unearthly clock? This dull roaring that I could not tell was from pony mouths or bestial ones?

“In the mind, of no one, Forming sun, Forming love, Break the chain, Hide within... Innocence, not innocent, Eat the beast, keep him in... lunacy... lunacy...”

As Gemel and I continued to make our way to the great gothic quadrangle in the void, the same strange chant repeated, whispered and shouted and murmured all at once from all around. The environment was shifting around us, the towers and arches crumbling and rearranging themselves by the minute, but the gate remained the same. What was to await us beyond the gate, I wondered? Was it to be some great paradise, another void, a hellish, otherworldly landscape? I had no idea, but I didn’t fancy sticking around this side of the gate. The voices were getting terribly irritating, after all.

Once we arrived, I found our way still blocked, the archway of the gate barred by the same iron grille. We tried everything we could to budge it, but it simply would not give. After earning ourselves hurt legs for our trouble, after attempted to buck it down, the both of us sat down, our breath coming out in pants. Wait, did we even need breath here? I wasn’t quite sure if this was a dream or just an internal hallucination. Did it really matter, though?

Regardless of what it was, a voice soon spoke, with a hollow intonation like stones dragged through a tunnel. “Only the selfless one may enter first, and of your own peril.” I looked over at Gemel, swallowing. Was this some sort of trick question? Would I be selfless if I went in first, since it was ‘of your own peril?’ Or would I have to send him in first to show I was selfless? It made no sense. Then again, logic had but little control in this realm, it seemed. More like complete lunacy, I thought. It was rather annoying, to be honest.

Before I could make a decision, Gemel stood up and trotted back over to the gate. “I will go,” he said firmly, giving me a stern look before I could open my mouth to protest.

“Enter then, selfless one.” the voice from nowhere boomed again, and the gate opened, inch by inch, until it was wide enough for him to pass through. Without a hint of hesitation, he stepped through the gate... only to vanish in a scream of agony and a whirlwind of colour.

Almost immediately, I knew something was wrong, my heart racing as I stared in speechless horror at the spot where he just was. Before I could rush forward through the gate, I felt the curious sensation of my body slowly receding from the spot. It was a cold tugging, like lying on the sand by the shoreline and letting the water slowly drag you into the water. It was equal parts terrifying and interesting, or at least it would be if my mind was processing things at the moment. As it was, everything felt blurred, distant, as I felt myself slowly detach from the world around me and float back into the void.

I still heard the voices, though, as clear as a bell, chanting the same mad mantra over and over as the world spun around in a dizzying spiral around me. “Hide within... Innocence, not innocent, Eat the beast, keep him in, eat the beast, keep him in, hide within, hide within... lunacy... lunacy.”

“Innocence, not innocent, Eat the beast, keep him in... your childhood is over, your childhood is over... lunacy...”

“Lunacy...”

“...lunacy...”

“..........lunacy...”

I awoke with a startled yelp, falling out of the bed in a tangle of heavy covers and twisted white sheets. Dear mother of Faust, it’d been so long that I’d forgotten how bizarre my dreams were when I took Kykeon. I was sure the visions had some kind of significance in the waking world, some kind of subconscious tap on the shoulder or prophetic forewarning, but I didn’t particularly care about that at the moment. I was more occupied with first getting out from under the covers, and then getting my bearings.

Once I had extracted myself from the bundle of bedclothes, I became aware of a blinding pain in my skull, as well as a large stone somewhere in my gut. The searing pain, at least, dulled to a mild throbbing once I’d turned off the bedside lamp and forcefully closed the one annoying crack of light between the curtains and the window.

It was morning, I realised with a groan of resignation as I fell back onto the bed, turning my head to see the alarm clock on the bedstand. 10:17 AM, it read, the green digital letters seemingly mocking me for my late awakening. Fuck, I never slept that late normally. The Kykeon must have really knocked me out, I mused as I went about the motions of actually getting ready for the day rather than simply awakening.

I was mid-way through my usual morning routine, my toothbrush in my mouth, when I suddenly realised something was... off about this. Something was missing; no, not something, somepony. Amber was nowhere to be found, and there was no sign of her having returned to the hotel room last night.

Oh shit, I thought, staring at my wide-eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Oh Gods,” I muttered, resisting the tempting urge to bang my head against the hard porcelain of the sink until the problem went away. “She’s not back yet...”

Something must have happened, I realised. But what? Exactly how much trouble could one twisted pegasus mare possibly get into? Especially as late as it was, only a few miles from the heart of Neigh Orleans? Then again, knowing Amber, the answer was blunt; a lot. With her luck, she’d probably wound up landing on top of the Superdome and being adopted as the red-headed stepchild of an equinophobic family of rafter pigeons.

That was just a guess, though, as I truly had no idea where she could be. And that was, to be frank, more terrifying than the worst sort of acid dreams.

With that in mind, the first thing I did was check downstairs, only to encounter an ugly surprise. The car was gone, and nopony else had seen heads or tails of her since she’d disappeared into the night. For all they knew, she might as well have vanished into thin air.

I couldn’t help but feel an uneasy sort of paranoia creeping up the back of my neck as I set about combing all over the city for my partner, armed with nothing but my wallet, mobile phone and my house keys in my saddlebags. I had left everything else at the hotel room, of course; there was no way in Tartarus I was going to be carrying a briefcase filled with what looked like the entire evidence locker of the local Narcotics division in broad daylight. I might be a lot of things, but reckless enough to get myself arrested if I can avoid it is not one of them.

By about noon, I found myself sitting at some greasy burger joint at the corner of Bourbon and Dumane Street with my head in my hooves, nursing a cold cup of coffee and wondering how my life had come to this. I paid little mind to the other customers who pushed past my seat in the great stampede for the counter, snatching up their plates of vinegar-dipped fries and heavy bean burgers before retreating to the back of this sweltering hellhole with an unholy clattering. Good thing about Neigh Orleans; you might be feeling absolutely miserable, but hey, at least there will always be good food to help you forget your woes.

Unfortunately, that small comfort did not last long, as the coffee was soon gone, leaving behind only a bitter taste and the desire to loudly curse whichever deity had left me with an empty cup. My thoughts began to turn more morbid and panicked, as the weight of this whole mess began to sink down on my shoulders. Amber could be anywhere at the moment; hell, she could be sitting at a table a few feet away from me in the throes of a pinion binge and I wouldn’t know it.

Pondering what the hell I was going to do next, and having already spent the past two hours scouring the city like a Las Pegasus debt collector, I picked up a rumpled copy of the Times-Picayune that lay wedged between my seat and the wall, and opened it to a random page. I didn’t think I’d find anything, of course, but it was worth a shot. After all, if my partner had gotten into any spectacular trouble last night, it was bound to be in the paper somewhere.

No reason to panic yet, after all. Just stay calm, keep reading the paper. The lead story was a screaming bold headline:

15-YEAR-OLD ARRESTED IN DOUBLE MURDER IN NATALBANEIGH

A 15-year-old colt has been arrested in the killing of two stallions who were found shot to death outside a convenience store in Natalbaneigh, the Sheriff's Office said Thursday. The teenager, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, was taken into custody Wednesday night and booked with two counts of first-degree murder.

“How a 15-year-old can be involved in something so callous, is really, it’s beyond comprehension to me,” said Sheriff Bronze Star.

"Detectives now believe these killings were drug-related and that both cases are connected. Details surrounding these investigations are not being released at this time, however future arrests are imminent," said a statement from the sheriff's office.

As my eyes scanned over the tiny print, my sunglasses long since removed so I wouldn’t be seeing in all yellow, I came across a section which caught my interest, simply marked Jail Docket. The reason was a single name about halfway down the laundry list of various petty miscreants, staring back at me as if I were gazing into a tome of forbidden knowledge and not a local newspaper.

Bead, Amber E. Charge: Drunk and Disorderly- Fight.

The paper fell out of my trembling hooves, floating away to be squashed beneath some random passerby’s hoof. I didn’t care, though. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe; couldn’t do anything but stare into the depths of my coffee mug while my brain did its best to process this.

Once I had recovered myself, my thought process could be summed up in three words. “Gods dammit, Amber,” I groaned, wondering how the hell I was going to get her out of this one. Though my partner has been known to get herself into all sorts of trouble while under the influence, she’s never been arrested for anything before. Mainly due to pure luck, but still. I had no idea what to do. I know it sounds like a stupid thing to be concerned about, but I’ve never as much as gotten a parking ticket before, so I have no idea how to bail someone out of jail.

Did I just need to show up at the city jail, wherever it was, with a random amount of bits, and hope it was enough? Did I need to get papers for this? Hell, did I even have enough to bail her out, or did I need to get a bondspony? Where was she, anyway? There were three jails in the city’s immediate area; Orleans Parish Prison, St. Bernard Parish Jail, and Jennyson Parish Correctional. I had no idea which one she was stuck in, and I was going to have one hell of a time finding out on short notice, since I had no legal connection to Amber, partner or not.

I called her that for a reason, mind you. She was... she was more than a friend to me. The word could not describe what we were accurately. ‘Best friend’ was nicer, but fell woefully short of the mark. Roommate was far too impersonal.

I guess the best way to put it is... Amber was my... well, my other half. I’m rather dubious about the notion of pre-destined ‘soulmates’ but she was certainly the most important person in my life. We shared everything; our house, our money, our time. Hell, even back when she was with her old coltfriend, we’d all had a good time or two. She and I did everything together; good, bad, and indifferent. From adrenaline-fueled, drug-addled adventures on the town ending in manic laughter and passing out from exhaustion, to just going to the grocery store together to pick up a jug of orange juice, we were essentially inseparable. Despite her penchant for getting into all sorts of reckless situations, she was very valuable to me.

And for the first time in a long while, I had no idea where she was, and had no way to get in contact with her. That... that terrified me. I was on my own here in the city at the moment, and she was too. And I wasn’t sure if I could even get answers out of the pigs at the Parish Jail, since, despite our connection, I was not a blood relative. I wasn’t married to her either (though not for lack of her wanting to), nor had any form of documentation tying me to her other than a house lease with our names on it, sitting in a desk drawer an hour away. It would take me forever to find her and then arrange to get her out, unless...

My eyes widened as I rose from my seat, leaving my empty coffee cup and a few bits on the table. I had a plan! It was a kind of a lazy plan, I realise in hindsight, since it meant I was just handing off getting Amber out to somepony else when I should be the one to do it. But if it worked, that didn’t really matter. What mattered was getting my partner out of jail and back home as soon as possible. So I headed off back towards our hotel, fishing my mobile phone out of my saddlebag.

It was time to call her family.

There was a hiss of static, before a tired-sounding voice with a Manehatten accent as thick as northern snow was heard on the other end of the line. “Hello? Silver? Is everything alright, dear?”

“Hello, Mrs. Bead. And I wish I could say it was.” I swallowed before continuing. It was best to cut to the chase for this sort of thing; time was of the essence. “I’m afraid Amber’s gotten herself into a spot of trouble, and I don’t know where she is. I mean, I know she’s in jail, but I don’t know which one. Could you please find out and arrange for her to be bailed out?”

There was a moment of silence, before Amber’s mother let out a deep, troubled sigh that implied this was not an unexpected occurrence. “Yes, I can. What happened?”

I shrugged half-heartedly before answering. “My guess is as good as yours. All I know is she went out last night and got herself booked for drunk and disorderly. Anything more than that you’d have to find out.” I felt bad, leaving it all up to her mother to arrange the details. Amber was my partner. My responsibility. I should have-

...not let her leave the hotel last night alone. Not left her to the mercy of some random NOPD cop, being the vicious fuckers they are. Not spent the rest of the night drugged into sleep when I could have been looking for her, or at least keeping an eye on her. Fuck, I had really screwed this one up, hadn’t it? I always tried to make sure she was safe and happy to the best of my ability. I could try and try and try again to keep her from doing reckless things, but I could never really protect her when it actually mattered. Some ‘partner’ I am.

“...Silver? You still there, Silver? Do you want me to call you back when everything is settled?” I sat up with a jolt. I’d forgotten Mrs. Bead was still on the line.

I cleared my throat, pushing aside my guilty musings for the moment. “Yes, please, Mrs. Bead. I will leave my phone on. Please call me or text me the details when you find out, and I will call you immediately when I finally get ahold of Amber. Goodbye, Mrs. Bead.”

“Goodbye, Silver. And please, call me Pearl, dear. You’re practically family, after all.” With a beep, the phone went silent, and I was left in the hotel room, staring blankly at the desk in front of me.

Now it was time to play the wait game. And boy, was this going to be an agonising session.

It was a very long four hours, twenty-seven minutes and probably about thirty seconds when a knock sounded on the door.

I jumped from the bed and sprinted to the door as if I had hellhounds on my heels, flinging it open. Standing in the doorway, tottering and swaying like a house of cards was Amber. I could tell immediately she was hurt, and not just from too much liquor, either. The area around her right eye was blacked, swollen, and lurid shade of purple. Her eyes were glazed over as if still in a daze, staring right through me rather than at me. Her glasses were cracked and lopsided, looking ready to slide down the end of her muzzle. “Hi Silvyyyyy!” she slurred, lazily waving a hoof at me. “Howsit?”

This wasn’t a drunk sort of slurring. This was the kind you get after you’ve been beaten in the head one too many times and can’t talk straight until the concussion goes away. And by the looks of her black eye alone, one time had been enough. She had been hurt.

...Somepony had beaten her.

I felt a slow-burning anger welling up from the deepest pits of my stomach, threatening to consume everything in its path. Somepony had hurt her. Some nasty little punk who didn’t deserve to kiss the ground she stepped on, or some smug little cop who thought she was being a little too uppity had beaten her like a dog. As the gears turned slowly, my mind conjured up various scenarios of how it could have happened. Maybe she’d been in a bar, and some asshole had picked a fight with her, and she’d been too twisted to argue. Maybe she got ambushed on some back alley by a couple of thugs, only to be discovered by cops at the wrong time? Fuck, there should be a special place in Tartarus for ponies who beat up mares not sober enough to defend themselves. And I hoped they damn well stayed there for a while, too.

Nopony hurts the ponies I love. No scum-sucking little fucker is allowed to hurt those I care about, especially not my Amber.

As my imagination began to run wild, I finally noticed a taller pegasus mare standing at her side, shaking her head in either sympathy or befuddlement. “I’m terribly sorry you have to see her like this, Mister Sieve. I’m Brenda Bail, your go-to for any bail bondsmare needs.” She handed me a business card automatically, not that I would probably have need of it.

I decided to get straight to the point. I raised an eyebrow, glancing pointedly between her and Amber. “What happened?”

Brenda swallowed, fiddling with a little e-cig she had in her hooves as if she had no idea what to do with it. “Well, it’s a long story. But to sum it up, your, er, partner here got herself into a fight outside a bar on Bourbon Street, about a block from the Cat’s Meow. Normally this wouldn’t be so bad- the cops normally break up the fights before any real damage can be done. But it seems she made the mistake of pissing off somepony with friends nearby, who, from what she told me, decided to gang up on her.”

“I got in a fight,” Amber muttered, leaning back against the doorframe for support. “They won, I lost. Do I still look pretty, Silvy?”

“Yes, you still look pretty,” I reassured her quickly, before looking back at the bondsmare. “How bad was the damage?”

The mare frowned, turning away for a moment. “Cracked some of the bones in her muzzle, though thankfully not her skull. She’s still recovering from being concussed right now, and the back of her head is heavily bruised. Her legs are scratched up and bruised, but the damage is just superficial. According to the doctors, she’ll need facial fracture repair surgery in a few months...”

Oh shit, that didn’t sound good. Facial repair surgery? Had it really been that bad? What the hell had they done to her?

I resisted the urge to go out and find who did it, settling on glaring at the wall behind Amber instead with a loathing that would make plants wither. “I hate to interrupt, but where is the car? I think the best thing at this point would be to get her home.”

The bondsmare shifted uneasily, glancing between Amber and I. “Well... it’s in the impound yard. I couldn’t get it because it’s not mine, and she can’t because she’s like this. You’re the only one besides her whose name is on the insurance, so...”

“...so I’m going to have to go get the car, aren’t I?” I sighed, rubbing my temples with a hoof. “Where is it, and how much am I going to have to pay to get it out?”

“Thirty-five bits.” Brenda replied quickly, fishing a little card out of her saddlebag. “It’s downtown. Shouldn’t take you long to get there.”

“Fine.” I said, glancing back towards the luggage still in the hotel room. “But once I get it out, she can go home, right? There isn’t a court date immediately or anything?” I hoped there wasn’t. I didn’t know how these things work, but I wasn’t particularly keen on dealing with some sort of cruel, ill-tempered magistrate who thought it was perfectly respectable to make examples out of petty offenders. There are a lot more of those than not, and I didn’t fancy the huge expense of her having to pay for a lawyer. We were already in a tight fiscal situation already- no need to exacerbate it.

“There is a court date, actually, but it’s not for a couple weeks. She just has to appear, make her plea, and pay her fine- that’s it. Nothing too complicated or burdensome.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Alright then. In that case, I’m going to check out of the hotel and put our luggage in your car until we can pick up ours, if that’s alright Miss Bail?”

She nodded. “That’s fine, certainly. Go ahead- I’ll be waiting downstairs, in the green car in front of the building.”

As she turned to walk out the door, I looked over at Amber, gently reaching out towards her. Her eyes connected with mine, the glazed look in her eyes starting to gradually be replaced by lucidity. “Am I a bad person, Silver? Is that why this happened?” she whispered, tears starting to brim at the corner of her eyes.

“No, you’re not.” I said immediately, reaching a hoof out to touch her shoulder. “Now come on, dear. We’re going home, alright?”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”