Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

THE TEST THAT STUMPED THEM ALL

Life isn’t easy for anypony, but sometimes there are unexpected events that can turn even the most outstanding pony into something completely different.

Our friend Twilight Sparkle was no exception. She was the personal student of Princess Celestia herself, and everypony always expected her to be the best… actually, I digress.  I will start at the beginning.

Several months after the incident with the Apple Family, Applejack had improved from her mental trauma and was finally allowed to stay at home with her family. After months of therapy, she began to be like the pony that we all used to know.

Almost at the same time that Applejack got out from the hospital, Twilight started to seclude herself into her home, and as ever, we haven’t paid too much attention since she used to do that when she’s studying for something important.

Life went as usual for week or so, but then we really began to notice that we hadn’t seen Twilight in almost a month. We tried to talk to her several times, but she never answered the door. Spike just kept telling us that she was off studying in the basement or something.

She had simply locked herself down there, but we tried to not get worried with her. We all knew that she sometimes had some moments like this, and we expected her to eventually come out jumping in excitement yelling that she finally had found and answer to this or that. However, we had never seen her disappear for this long.

Around this time, Applejack was back into her normal routine of taking care of the farm and her family.

Pinkie was happy with her new coltfriend and spent most of her time with him. I always noticed them bouncing around Ponyville together, always laughing and talking super fast. And judging by the amount of time she spent at his house we began to wonder if we were going to be seeing a wedding invitation soon.

While all this was going on, the onset of fall had brought about another wave of orders from the Boutique leaving me with very little free time. Then, my parents decided to move to Ponyville and that took away any time to myself that I had left.

And finally: Fluttershy… oh Fluttershy, she was the same pony as always, I never had seen any hint of sadness in her beautiful face. Her life stayed the same, despite all the hardships, she ended up being the strongest mare that I had ever seen.

However, whenever life begins to settle down, something new always comes along to upset everything once again.

After a while it became clear that we were becoming more than worried about Twilight. Spike had told us that when he asked about what she was doing for so long in the basement, she had begun to yell at him and get angry.

Not soon after, we began to get REALLY concerned.

I was working on another large order from Fillydelphia, when I heard a frantic knocking at my front door. Opening it, I immediately was hugged by a crying Spike. Looking into his eyes, I could see the pain and strangely fear he was feeling.

After calming him down, I asked him exactly what had happened.

Spike told me that he had gone to the basement with some food, and that when he tried to figure out what she was doing, Twilight had yelled at him and began to telekinetically throw things at him with her magic. He also mentioned that while she was doing it, she was talking to herself as if to reply to an unheard voice.

At that point, I decided to confront Twilight about exactly what was happening. Until now, we had been ok just thinking that she was deep in her studies; but this painted a whole other picture.

Taking Spike with me, I walked over to the library and knocked on the door. After a couple seconds with no reply, I had Spike find the hidden spare key for me.

Entering the main room, I could year yelling coming from the basement. Running over to the basement door, I failed to open the locked door. Spike then pulled out a second key and unlocked this door for me as well.

Descending the stairs, I didn't think anything could have prepared me for what I encountered.  Instead of finding blackboards filled with complex mathematic equations and theories, there were nonsensical words written all over the walls; even the ceiling was covered in a hazy and confused writing.

Twilight was sitting at the middle of the room mumbling incoherent words to herself. I walked over and when put my hoof onto her shoulder to comfort her, she turned to me with bloodshot eyes and began to yell.

I remember her screaming at me that something was coming for her and that she needed to stay alone. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but her appearance alone showed that she was definitely not in her right mind.

Screaming at me to get out, I ran in fear from the horrific room. Sprinting upstairs, I saw Spike with a sad expression looking at me with red puffy eyes.

His sadness shook me to no end, he was such a nice dragon especially to Twilight… how could she do such horrible things to him? I would have never expected Twilight to act this way towards her number one assistant.

After locking Twilight back into the basement, I sent Spike to gather the rest of our friends.

Once everyone was gathered there, we decided to ask Princess Celestia for help. Spike sent our letter off, and after two hours she teleported to the Library. She had gone ahead and brought Princess Luna along with her, as well as a couple guards.

Princess Celestia trotted down to the basement, and told us to wait for her to return.

After she went down there, we heard Incoherent yells echoing from the basement stairs while we waited. After a couple of minutes, the yelling turned into a calmer and apologetic tone and Princess Celestia returned and told us of the situation. She said that Twilight was having some sort of stress and that she was going to take her back to Canterlot for a couple weeks to let her mind ease.

Twilight came upstairs after Princess Celestia. We couldn’t decide how we were going to approach her. We just stood in silence as she trotted after the Princesses with a crestfallen expression. She didn’t say anything to us until she reached the front door, when she suddenly stopped, turned to us and said: “I’m sorry girls” and then followed the Princesses outside.

We trotted outside and watched them teleport away in complete silence.

We stayed at Twilight’s house that night, comforting Spike and assuaging his worries.

That night we tried not to think about it but to no avail. Twilight had always been a part of the bedrock of our friendship, not having her there made the library feel... empty.

But as always we hoped for the best…

________________________________________

Several weeks had passed by and Princess Celestia sent us information about how Twilight was doing, and to our relief, Twilight sent us a letter herself saying that in two days she would come back to Ponyville.

Of course, once we had gotten word of her return, Pinkie was already organizing a party for Twilight’s comeback and we were more than excited.

Finally, the day had arrived… but Twilight didn’t. The party was all set, the five of us were there and even Pinkie’s coltfriend. And we waited… and waited… we stayed there through the night, but we didn't even receive a letter explaining what happened.

We decided to go ahead and have Spike send a letter to see what was going on, and we soon got a reply.

A rough letter had arrived with hasty writing contained just one phrase: “Twilight is not well...”

I called the girls together for an “emergency” meeting and then discussed what we should do about it. After a short period of deliberation, we quickly decided that we should head to Canterlot to see with our own eyes what was happening to our dearest friend.

We six went by train to Canterlot the next day, and when we arrived some Royal Guards and Shining Armor were there waiting for us. Shining had a sad, worn look, but refused to say anything until we reached the castle.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by Princess Luna at the entrance gate. From there she guided us inside through several hallways until we reached a wing of the castle where there were many doctors moving about. Guiding us further in, we finally reached an area with three rooms that contained bars across the doors.

Once we saw that the rooms had been barred, we knew that something really bad was happening to Twilight. Luna pointed us to the center room and we peered through the iron bars.

I couldn’t control myself and fell into sobs when I saw Twilight inside an unadorned white room. She was lying on the bed with a pillow pressed to her face mumbling incoherently to herself. Her fur had several contusions and it was matted and stained as if she hasn't taken a bath in weeks.

Princess Luna sadly lead us out of the room and over to a waiting room where we sat across a table from her as she explained the situation.

She said that Twilight was most likely suffering from severe schizophrenia. We thought that our world had been shattered several times before, but this was the worst. Our beloved friend Twilight, the protégé of Princess Celestia, multiple time savior of Equestria, and one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria, was going insane.