Sanity Zero

Twilight had retreated upstairs, leaving Ziamel alone and unconscious in the basement. She had to report to Celestia of her success. I’m going to have to be more careful now. There’s no telling how the human will react once he’s awake.

Pulling out a unused scroll, a quill and a bottle of ink from the library’s study desk, Twilight sat down and began thinking. How am I going to explain the 7%?Celestia might tell me to send the human back and get a more stable one if I tell her so. Twilight glanced around, and cursed, noticing that she had left her coffee down in the basement.

A couple of minutes passed before she finally knew what to write. She brought the writing instruments with her as she strode into the kitchen. Sitting at one of the counters, she laid the scroll down and dipped the quill into the ink. As she did so, she levitated over a cup, a tea bag and some sugar. She brewed some tea as she began writing her letter.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I’m proud to inform you that the gauge you told me to make, which I call the ‘Sanity Gauge’, was a success! I have found a suitable test subject on which to test it on, and I didn’t encounter as much resistance as I thought I would. The device is working as it should be, and the test subject is safely asleep as I write this.

Twilight paused, taking a sip of her tea. Had she not sipped too loud, she would have noticed a trio of ‘beep’ sounds coming from the library. She set her cup down and continued writing.

The test subject is a creature called a ‘Human’, from a planet called ‘Earth’. The male subject seems to live with another human, also male, in a dark room. Kind of reminds me of when I was back at your school for gifted unicorns, when my roommate wouldn’t allow sunlight into the room. Although the Sanity Gauge may be working, there is something else I must inform you of.

The statistics displayed by the gauge are as you requested. Mental stats, emotional stats and physical stats are all displayed, with the last part, ‘Sanity’, displayed at the bottom. Hopefully this is what you meant by the ability to know when somepony’s going to snap.

Twilight paused. She could have sworn that she heard a sharp inhale coming from the library. She sighed. Probably just my imagination. Twilight took another sip of her tea as she continued writing.

Another thing I wish to inform you of is, the stats displayed by the gauge when I tested it out on the Human. Sanity is below ten percent, which I take to mean that the human might not be very stable at the moment. No need to worry though, should anything happen, I’ll be able to disable him. As for the detachment of the gauge....

Twilight stopped. She hadn’t thought of the detachment of the gauge from Ziamel’s back at all. This might be another problem. She shook her head, and decided to worry about the detachment later.

The detachment should be as easy as the attachment. I’ll keep in contact though to explain further should I discover anything more.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle.

The sound of a door creaking before the sound of it shutting attracted Twilight’s attention. Probably just somepony dropping off a book or something. “Give me a few moments!” Twilight called out to whoever might be in the library.

Twilight quickly rolled up the scroll, sealed it, and sent it on its way in a puff of orange smoke. With that done, Twilight finished off her tea and quickly snuck back into the library. The front door was closed, and there was no sign of anypony. Twilight turned to the basement door. That door too, was locked. Twilight trotted over to the check-out counter to see if anypony had dropped off anything. There was nothing.

Then a thought struck Twilight. Who would visit a library this early in the morning in the first place? Twilight knew that she herself would do so, but she knew that nopony would visit the library so desperately that they would come so early. Twilight looked up at the wall clock hanging right above the door. It was 6.13 in the morning.

The only pony awake at this hour would most likely be Applejack, but I doubt that she would visit the library without her breakfast and applebucking. Twilight sighed. She opened the front door and exited. Twilight glanced around the outside, hoping to see any traces of somepony. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Twilight glanced up. Already Princess Celestia’s sun’s rays were showing above the horizon.

Twilight retreated inside. Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much. Twilight trotted back over to the basement door. Just as she was about to open the door, a terrifying thought struck her. What if- Twilight didn’t want to complete the thought. Twilight reversed her steps, moving away from the door as she glanced to the left and the right, looking for a weapon she could use.

This could do. Twilight levitated over an unused lamp, which was about a metre long and made of steel, from the corner of the room. Twilight took a deep breath, and trotted back over to the basement door. Inching it open slowly, Twilight prepared herself for whatever she might have to. The lights along the staircase were bright. Twilight considered dimming it down a bit, but she knew that anything could hide in the darkness.

Carefully, almost painfully, Twilight put one hoof in front of the other as she descended the staircase. The journey down the short flight of stairs was eerily quiet, the only sound being Twilight’s breathing and the sound of the lamp levitating behind her. Twilight continued slowly, noticing the basement lights bathing the bottom of the stairway.

Twilight reached the end, and gasped. Her coffee cup was turned over, its contents nearly soaking Twilight’s books and notes, but what Twilight was shocked at the most was the absence of the human she had attached the gauge upon. Twilight galloped into the middle of the room, lamp still in tow behind her, and scanned all around, hoping that she was wrong about the human not being in the basement.

Ziamel was nowhere to be seen, and Twilight feared for the worst. There’s an unstable, almost unknown creature on the loose, and I’m responsible for it! Twilight knew she should have prepared for a potential escape. That’s when another disturbing thought crossed her mind. What if the human is capable of doing what I had read about them?

Twilight let go of the lamp, ignoring the sound of the steel clattering against the wooden floor. She dashed up the staircase, planning her next course of action. If she let the princess know of the human’s disappearance, she could organise a search party for the human. As she thought so, another side of her brain fired back at her. But what if the human acts out of hoof? He’s already close to snapping! There’s no telling what the human is capable of!

Twilight stepped out into the library, glancing around as if the human was hiding there. If Celestia is in control of the situation, there shouldn’t be any problems with the human at all! The guards can easily overpower him. Twilight thought back to her plan of using a blackout spell. Maybe I can find the human myself? Twilight shook her head. No, bad idea. I don’t want anything terrible to happen.

Twilight trotted upstairs to her bedroom, wondering if her assistant was awake. She knew just the pony to look around for the human. As she expected, her assistant was already awake, yawning as he stretched in his basket.

“Spike! We have an issue in our hooves!” Twilight shouted at Spike. Taken by surprise, Spike leapt into the air, knocking the basket over as he did so, emptying its contents onto the floor.

“Geez, Twilight. Why so edgy? Just give me a moment.” Spike said.

“I have all the right to be edgy! We have a potential crisis going on!”

Spike yawned again. “Well then fill me in. If you want my help you don’t have to leave me out on everything you know.”

Twilight sighed. “Alright, but we’re going to have to make this quick.”

Ziamel had woken up upon hearing the sound of a door closing. He groaned. Dammit Gary, can’t you sneak out more silently? Ziamel’s eyes scanned the blurred environment around him. He groaned louder and tried to shut his eyes, but the lights were on and they were stinging his eyes painfully. He felt something against his back, which he ignored, too sleepy to even care. After a couple of minutes of unsuccessful re-entry into the world of sleep, Ziamel yawned and grumbled as he sat up.

He blinked a couple of times, clearing up the blurriness as he slowly got hold of his bearings. He flexed his neck a couple of times, the sound of a ‘crick’ notable. Ziamel stretched his arm to his back, planning to scratch it, only to come into contact with a cylinder and wires pressed into his back.

Now wide awake in surprise, Ziamel ran his hand across his back, carefully running his hands across the device. What in testicular meningitis is this thing? He carefully poked at the wires around the base of the device and around his upper back, right near the spinal column. This had better be a weird as fuck nightmare I’m having now.

He stopped running his hands across his back and scanned his surroundings. Maybe this is a nightmare. I don’t even know where the hell I am. The light hanging above him made things hard to concentrate. Ziamel sniffed the air, detecting the scent of coffee nearby. Well this is a vivid dream. Ziamel glanced upon a workbench, and identified the source of the liquid caffeine.

Ziamel crawled over to the workbench, and carefully hoisted himself up onto his feet with assistance from a nearby stool to steady himself. On the workbench was a pile of books, detailing the Milky Way Galaxy, Earth and humans, a blueprint, which Ziamel assumed was for the device he was wearing, and coffee pitcher and mug. Ziamel’s first action was to pour himself coffee.

As he filled the mug from it’s almost-empty state to three quarters full, Ziamel swept his eyes across the blueprint. He sipped a bit of the coffee, humming in contentment at how good it tasted, as he went through the details written. The more he read the more he felt that he really was dreaming. There surely can’t exist such a device, right?

That’s when reality finally hit him across the face with a brick. Wait. I wake up somewhere unknown with this thing across my back. Am I being used for something? Ziamel’s eyes widened. He set the mug down and continued reading the blueprints. Emotional, physical, mental... What the hell is this shit?

Ziamel could feel the warm glow of the gauge attached to his back. As he came to the end of the blueprints, he read that the hologram detailing his emotional, mental and physical conditions could be switched to display in front of the bearer of the gauge.

He reached behind, referring to the blueprints as he tried to feel for a button to flip the holographic screen for him to read. After what seemed like minutes of feeling around, he finally found a button. The button seemed to stick out, like it was supposed to be pushed. He gave the button a poke, and immediately a screen appeared in front of him.

The first thing he saw upon the holographic screen was a little red bar at the bottom, labelled ‘Sanity’ with its percentage along with it. Ziamel’s jaw dropped. Had he been observing his emotional bar, he would have noticed ‘confusion’ and ‘others’ rapidly increasing. Damn, this shit seems to be rather accurate. Ziamel didn’t want to know how his estimate of his sanity was correct even before he got the device on.

Ziamel ran his eyes across the other statistics, his ‘others’ part of the emotional bar spiking more as ‘confusion’ remained stagnant at 6%. Ziamel reached across the table, wanting to achieve the mug of coffee, but only succeeded in knocking it over. Panicking, Ziamel got a hold of the cup before it could topple onto the floor. The contents, however, were spilled across one side of the workbench and, thankfully, away from the books, but Ziamel couldn’t guarantee that some of the coffee would not soak the books and the blueprints.

He stepped back from the workbench, trying to devise an escape plan. Hell, I don’t even know my way around here. Ziamel didn’t want to touch anything further. He reached back and pushed the button again, and the holographic screen disappeared behind him. Ziamel crept carefully to a well-lighted staircase. Here goes.

Ziamel made sure that with every step he took, it would be at the sides of the wooden stair. He had read once that wooden stairs tend to creak most when pressure is applied to the middle. Continuing his ascent, Ziamel braced himself for whatever he might have to be facing after the final step of the staircase.

He arrived at a door, and took a deep breath. He counted from one to three, stopping mid-count when he ran his hands across his pants to wipe off some coffee. Reaching into his pocket, he achieved a pen. Hey, I still have my journal with me. Ziamel took the ballpoint pen out and clicked it. At least I have something to protect myself with.

Opening the door, Ziamel was surprised that there was no creaking sound, like most of the doors in his dormitory. What surprised him more was the feeling of familiarity as he quickly shut the door behind him. It’s like I’ve been here before. Ziamel almost dropped his pen, and snapped out of his short reverie. He could hear some sounds coming from another part of the library, and he strode carefully over.

He could hear the sounds of scribbling and slurping as he noted that, this section of the library, was not in anyway recognisable like the rest of the library. Peeking in, he saw something that defied all of his thoughts about ponies.

Right there, in a place that seemed to look like a kitchen, was the lavender unicorn mare, writing down what seemed to be a friendship letter. Pure shock gripped Ziamel as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. It took him all of his willpower to not turn what he was thinking into speech. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

As he stood there with his jaw dropped, he watched Twilight slurp more of her beverage. At the same time he heard a trio of ‘beep’ sounds coming from behind him. Ziamel inhaled sharply, and retreated back into the library. He pushed the button on the gauge on his back and the holographic screen reappeared in front of him. There was only a little difference, but that difference meant a lot to Ziamel.

The little red bar labelled ‘Sanity’ was now flashing an even brighter red, with the percentage displayed at the side. 4%? Are you fucking kidding me! Ziamel trembled. He wanted so badly to wake up from this nightmare. This...All of this! It cannot be real! This is one fucked up nightmare! I know of it!

Ziamel attempted to prove his point by punching the library wall with all of his might. He bit his lip as his knuckles collided with the solid wood, and he fought back a pained scream. Grasping his fist with his other hand, he whispered to himself, “This is no nightmare. This is just pure mental torture!”

He glanced around, quickly looking for any way of escaping the library. Ziamel had had enough of this ‘nightmare’. He crept around quietly, only finding a door after several minutes. He reached behind and pushed the button, making the holographic screen appear on his back again. This is bad this is bad this is baaaaaaad.

He opened the library door and unlike the basement door, this one creaked. Cursing, Ziamel quickly snuck out before shutting the door and taking a deep breath. This is some bad, bad shit you’re in, Ziamel. Some really, really bad shit. He kept his pen in his pocket. The sun’s rays were already visible over the horizon.

Ziamel could hear Twilight calling out in the kitchen, but he decided to ignore her and quickly made his way over to, what seemed like a safe place at a time, the Everfree forest, which he was certain was not more than five minutes away.