Sombra—King Sombra, as he demanded to be known under penalty of enslavement and lashing, retired down the spiral staircase that crawled up and down the spine of his palace. Unsatisfied with the torments he gave to his embittered subjects, he had planned on revising the Crystal Heart.
While it was true that it was necessary for the survival of his empire, given that he would have had nothing to rule over if his domain was caked with white frosting, the heart was an unnecessary good in his eyes. Merely hiding it away so its capability of harming him was diminished was not good enough, no, it had to be made useful to him, and him alone. Dark magic, King Sombra’s specialty, should certainly help him with that.
Reaching the end of the first of his seemingly endless flight of stairs, the king flared his specialty dark magic from the curved horn adorning his cranium and shot a beam straight up the chamber. It reached his throne room, catching the crystal gem that controlled the palace’s secrets. Encapsulated in his dark magic, the gem sealed off the entrance to King Sombra’s non-Euclidean chamber, ensuring nopony could trespass on his plans to seize and corrupt the Crystal Heart, once and for all.
Him sealing off his secret passageway cut off his dark beam. His mind too clouded with what demonic things he would do to the Crystal Heart, he unwittingly refocused his dark magic on the combination lock above his trap door as if by second nature. The door seized his dark magic welcomingly, and instead of swinging open to the staircase up to the coveted heart like light magic would have it, swung open to an empty but glaring crystal wall.
Before realizing what he had done, King Sombra unwittingly gazed into the reflective surface, his red irises dilating. The whites of his eyes overgrew like weeds over concrete with the demonic magic, turning them green with envy. What they saw, however, was much more imperative.
Behind that infernal door laid what appeared to be nothing more than a simple crystal mirror. That “simple mirror” held a lot more power than mere reflection, though.
King Sombra’s greatest fear of all was reflected back onto him: the torments he inflicted upon his innocent subjects, which were actually projections of his own fears. The door reflected all of these tortures onto his own image as the king was forced to relive all his punishments that he gave to others, for not even the king was master of his own dark trap.
The door shot back King Sombra’s hatred with fury and attacked his senses, starting with touch. Before he could realize what was going on and snap out of his trap, the door robbed him of his motor skills as his physical functions evaporated, sapping him of at least the freedom to struggle. It looked and felt to him as if he was locked in stocks, whipped. The door convinced him that his crystal coat was being brutally lashed off, a punishment he so liberally gave out. He was made to suffer like his subjects were; he was turned into a slave, like his army of slaves used to enslave.
His mind was intruded upon with a cacophony of verbal tortures. His brainwashing that he coerced his subjects with instead mind-broke him as a chaotic fume of his own screeching propaganda sheared through his brain, deafening him. His ears collapsed in the mirror, trying to drone out the torture of it, but the door responded by giving him constant but inconsistent deafening shrieks and pings like those the crystal ponies made upon his torment of them. It fully brain-washed him into believing the fake reality that lied before him as his own image in the mirror reflected his pain, his ears quivering violently.
He started to smell a putrid, disgusting scent. It was that of decay, of flesh or flora. King Sombra tried to place what exactly it was even through his mental torture. It was that of his dark magic crystals that he sprouted everywhere like the red weed, that he was all too fond of and his subjects all so afraid of. Its smell was tarry and intoxicating, and it filled his nostrils completely, giving off the illusion that he was drowning as he started to struggle breathing while his now-rotten green eyes started to water.
Conversely, the door invoked a flaming fire in his tongue as he tasted his own furious passions that he bellowed all too eagerly at his subjects. It ran up and down his mouth as it simulated the unjustified burning hatred he felt for the crystal ponies, his own people. His mouth started to smoke as the door mocked his shadowy arts, emulating them in his throat, causing him to choke.
King Sombra was bombarded with all of the tortures he gave out freely, a cascade of psychological and seemingly physical torture overtaking him all at once as the illusion set in. It was impossible for him to even begin to comprehend his torment, as the door’s increasing hatred found its way into its king’s mind, ensuring that he couldn’t even think straight as the onslaught of fantastical pain and humiliation broke his sanity. All he could do was gaze on at his tormentor, reflecting his pain.
What his vision saw was the greatest torture of all, however. King Sombra saw himself in that mirror.
Not his current self, that of the evil ruler cloaked in black garb and practicing the dark magical arts with his shadowy aura, his umbrum. No, it was his previous self. His old image that was much more innocent looking, before he started to rule, before his corruption.
He was normal. Good-looking, even. No evil regalia defined him, no dark arts corrupted him. He was a handsome crystal prince, amongst his crystal companions.
His reflection’s irises were back to being green, not with envy but with growth. No purple flame drew out of his eyes, either. His mane was swept back in a dignified and stately manner, unlike his current shadow-aura for a mane. No cutting steel diadem circled his head, no wrathful red horn that shot dark magic, and his royal cloak blended nicely with his coal coat, as opposed to his present crystalline body, augmented by intimidating armor. He wasn’t the evil umbrum he became known as. He was just a regular crystal pony, like his subjects. And he shared in his torture.
Why was that image so tormenting to the king?
It was because he couldn’t scapegoat his image onto why he was the way he was. He couldn’t blame his image for his wrongdoings, that he did evil because he looked evil, or that any of his features were inherently evil. He had corrupted himself, he wasn’t naturally corrupt. All of the evils done to him now as he did to his subjects were because of his actions, not his image or any other vanity. He turned himself greedy to seize a throne purely to tyrannize over, out of envy and hatred. It wasn’t because he was designed to look evil. The door reflected all of his evils onto himself.
So the door gave him crystal clarity, and King Sombra realized what was actually his greatest fear of all: viewing himself with utter objectivity. It wasn’t the illusion of physical and mental torture that was his true fear. It was an objective view of his torturous ways, plastered onto the stallion he once was. For having subjected innocent ponies to these very pains to then have them subjected unto him allowed him to metaphorically step back and ponder—all he could ponder, given his mental assault—the true extent of his atrocities, forgoing personal bias.
It forced him to realize the magnitude of his crimes in the context of his past self, who shared in his present self’s tortures, for the current greedy and self-centered stallion could not comprehend the evils he had done to his so-called “crystal slaves” on his own. The door had to show him his present evils in contrast to his past good.
Utter objectivity at viewing himself and his own actions, anypony’s greatest fear. For having evils committed upon his enemies and then unto him removed all subjectivity from the matter; there was no longer any specific target of the torture’s hatred, and so there was nothing left but to see them as they were, not who they were directed at, even as he had felt his subjects had deserved it. Yet now he was stuck with himself, his past self, a good pony like the lot of them, sharing their tortures in that evil creation of a mirror.
His reflection tortured him as he was forced to stare at it for all eternity; the door, although lacking in true hatred and creativity—it was King Sombra’s own fears, after all—committed its own evils against its evil creator, corrupting his perception of time to make sure his fears stayed unique and true: what could have been years felt like seconds, then minutes like millennia. All of this warped the feelings of his tortures as he was unable to ever adjust to them.
All except for one.
His reflection, that kind and handsome crystal prince from a long-dead past, perpetually stared back at him with apathy towards his and its own pain in that crystal wall, hidden by that demonic door that had no master. King Sombra stared back at it, unable to cry out in repentance as the illusions of his torture prevented him—although he was physically untouched, it psychologically tormented him as if he was.
The irony is that the door that was supposed to be mere fantasy made King Sombra’s other greatest fear a grim reality: losing his power. With the king trapped in his own reflection in his palace catacomb, the Crystal Heart was seized with impunity by Equestria’s heroes, who never located the deposed crystal king, presuming him gone like Queen Chrysalis had. Placed back upon its rightful pedestal, it undid the rest of Sombra’s evils, but its beam was unable to find a direct path to him, unable to release him from his agony.
The trap door, intended by him as false illusion, actually made crystal clear the true futility of his evils. For stripped of his authority, all of the crimes he committed against his innocent subjects were all for naught; there was no point for his sins to acquire the throne now that he lost it, unfulfilled. Instead, all of his crimes were thrown back at him as his flesh was sheared, his mind broken, nose drowned and mouth inflamed for all eternity, unable to atone for them and free himself from his living nightmare.
But most of all, Sombra was forever forced to stare at his past image of greatness as it mimicked his new self’s agony in the crystal mirror, the most objectifying view of his sins. A reminder of what he once was, and what he could have been: a good stallion and king.
It was a perfect image.
Author's Note
Just a short story I concocted after seeing King Sombra’s return and having re-read/watched I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (both the story and its game adaptation, the latter of which I took the title and chapter name from Nimdok’s story).
I tried to leave the timeframe of when the story occurs a little vague—season 3 or season 9—because it felt like this could happen at either of those times, although it probably makes more sense in season 3’s context. I always felt that the trap door in season 3 was wasted potential.
