Institutionalization: Institution
"1225, it's time for your evening meal. Please prepare for retrieval by nurses."
I hear the voice blare through the speaker. I've heard the voice hundreds of times, if not thousands...I think. I can't really remember it that well. But I've heard it enough times to know that it is definitely coming from a speaker. I can't find the speaker, though, but I know it's there.
Suddenly, the door to my room slides open, revealing a bleak, white pony wearing a bleak, white uniform standing in a bleak, white hall. Everything here is white. Well, not everything. Some of the ponies are different colors. But aside from them, most things are white. The ponies in the uniforms say that it's because white is a plain, soothing color. I really don't see how. But I suppose I like the white. I'm grey though. I'm an anomally in the white, like so many other ponies here. Like the shadows in the corners, I'm not white. I'm different. I don't know if I like that or not, but the ponies in the uniforms say that it's good to be different, so I think I like it.
"Hello!" I say excitedly to the nurse. They say that we should always be polite, and it's polite to say hello. The nurse doesn't say anything back. I think she's being very rude, but I don't say so, because that wouldn't be polite of me. Instead, rather than say hello to me, she enters my room, helping me up. I can't get up with my jacket on, so I need help, and it's the nurses' jobs to help us.
As we walk out of my room and into the hallway, I contemplate how I walk. I always think about it, but I never really get tired of it. I walk on my two hind legs, leaning on the nurse as we walk down the hall toward the big room. The ponies without the jackets don't have to walk like that. I think I might even hover, if my wings weren't strapped to my sides, because that would be easier. But I can't, so I still walk in my funny way.
Then we walk into the big room. It's where we eat. There are tables and chairs and lights in the big room. The lights in here are much brighter than in the little rooms.
There are ponies in the big room. Lots of them. Some of them are nurses, all dressed in their pressed white coats. They watch the other ponies. Some of these ponies wear coats that look like the nurses' uniforms. But they aren't uniforms. These coats don't have the card clipped to the front. The one that says 'Canterlot Institution for the Mentally Unsound' on it. That card is very important to each nurse, because it let's other nurses know that they work here. Other ponies wear jackets with straps on them. But I don't have a jacket like theirs. Theirs are white. Mine is special. I don't know why I got a special one. Mine is a deep green color, and it has a hood, and cream colored stripes down the sleeves. They tell me that it helps the staff identify high risk patients more easily. I don't know what that means. I like my jacket.
There are other ponies that work here, too. There are doctors, but I don't see them much. There are also therapists, but I'm not allowed near them. I don't know why. My favorite ponies are the kitchen staff. They make meals for us. Today we eat creamed corn. That means it's Thursday. We always have creamed corn on Thursday. I can't eat my meals on my own, though, because of my jacket. I need a nurse to feed me. I'm okay with that, because it's their job, and I don't want to hinder their job. That's polite.
Today I sit across the table from another pony. Her name is 3470. That's not really her name, but that's what the institution named her when she came here. She told me that her name is actually Screw Loose. I think it is a very nice name. She always talks to me when we sit near each other. Today, she talks to me about what she used to do. She said she used to run through the forest, and chase cats and squirrels, and play fetch with herself. I don't know why, but she says it made her happy, and that's all that matters.
After the afternoon meal, the nurse takes me back to my room. My room is special. The other ponies' rooms have doors that swing out, and beds, and desks, and chairs, and even books! But I like my room. It's a small, white room with no windows, and it has a big, bright light set in the ceiling. Aside from the door and the light, the entire room is padded, as if it were covered in pillows. They tell me it's so that I can't hurt myself. I don't think I would ever want to hurt myself. There are other rooms like mine, but those are mostly empty.
As I scoot around my room, I see the nurse leave, sliding the door shut as she walks away. Finding a comfortable spot, I lay down, curling up into a ball and thinking. I never remember what I think about. I suppose I just think. That's good, I guess.
As I lay there, I realize that something is wrong. Wiggling around some more, I find that one of the straps on my forelegs has come undone. That worries me. It shouldn't be undone. It isn't supposed to be. I consider calling for the nurse, but then I stop. She is doing her job, taking care of the other ponies. It wouldn't be polite to interrupt her job, or take her away from the other ponies.
Then I hear the buzz. I don't like the buzz, because that can only mean one thing. Sure enough, the lights go out.
'Well,' I think to myself, 'it is time to go to sleep.'
So I sleep.
I do not sleep restfully, though. I twist and turn, writhing throughout the night. I have nightmares. Strange, scary, somehow realistic nightmares. These nightmares feel almost like memories. But that's impossible. I can't remember anything, really.
Then it happens. I feel a click, almost like a light going on in my head. I see more nightmares. Bloody, terrible scenes, violent struggles, but for some reason, they comfort me. I know they should frighten me, but they don't. Then realize what I have just done
I have remembered.
I don't know if I like remembering, because I'm not sure if I like what I remember. But I do know that I want to remember more. I go back into my memories, delving further into what once was. And I remember something I like very much. I am no longer 1225.
After what feels like days, I hear a loud beep. That's our wakeup call. That means that the nurse will be here for me soon. But I don't want to see her, and I most certainly do not want to be polite to her. I have remembered a lot.
I wait, and I think. This time I know what I am thinking about, and I very much like it. Then I remember something else. I remember that my jacket was undone. I wiggle my forelegs back and forth, feeling the straps across my back loosen. Suddenly, the loosest one gives way, releasing my right foreleg and and wing. I try to reach back to undo the left one, but my hoof won't reach. Then, I have an idea.
Curving my wing down and around, I get it under the left strap. Then I give my foreleg a good, strong tug, and lift with my wing. The strap comes loose.
I'm free of my jacket.
I stand up, not quite properly yet. I still stand like when my jacket was strapped, the long green sleeves of the thing hanging limp down my sides. I keep thinking, pacing across the room. The nurse will be here soon. I need a plan.
I stand in the corner, pressing myself flat against the wall that has the door set in it. I wait. Then, all of a sudden, I hear it slide open. Then I hear a gasp. The nurse acts just the way I want her to. Instead of calling on her radio for other nurses, she walks into the room. She makes a big, big mistake.
Sneaking silently behind her, I grasp one of the long, dangling sleeves of my jacket in my mouth. Just as she is about to turn around, I wrap it around her neck, knocking her hooves out from under her and pulling on the sleeve as hard as I can. I hear the mare gasping for air, trying with all of her physical ability to breath, rasping as the vital oxygen is repelled by the chokehold of the sleeve. She gives one final, desperate struggle, then goes limp. She isn't breathing. I take my sleeve from around her neck, checking her for signs of life. She is most definitely dead.
I take her identification card, using it to close the heavy metal door behind me, leaving her lying on the floor of the room. As I enter the hallway, I look around me. The cameras have no lights on them. Luckily for me, today is the institution's maintenance day. The electronics are shut down. But that means that there will be many more staff ponies keeping watch. I walk toward the door to the big room.
When I make it to the big room, I check everywhere. It is empty. The kitchen staff aren't cooking yet, and the guards don't seem to have made it here yet. I head toward the kitchen, opening the door. There are a lot of things in the kitchen. Sharp things. Blunt, heavy things. I like these things. I take a small parring knife off of the wall, along with a much larger cleaver, and I take a long handled vegetable patty tenderizer with me. I put all but the cleaver in my jacket. Somewhere, I hear Screw Loose barking.
I walk back into the dimly lit big room. Shafts of morning sunlight filter through the tall glass windows, making patterns on the floor. I hover up to a window, stretching my sore wing muscles after years of inactivity. I rattle on the window, trying to open or break it. I can't get through, however. It's reinforced.
I have to make a way out, before something bad happens. But I can't find one. I will have to deal with the guards.
Just then, I see another nurse walk through the door. She is a pale yellow young mare, with a bright red mane. I like her mane. It is a good color. Before she can react, I pull out the parring knife I took from the kitchen, throwing it at her as fast as I can. It meets it's mark, burying itself deep in the nurse's forehead. But I don't quite make it in time. Just before the knife finds her, she let's out a bloodcurdling scream that echoes throughout the institution. Screw Loose is yowling now.
I move toward the door, stepping over the nurse's body and into the hallway. I see two guards running toward me, and more behind them. Readying my cleaver, I slash at the first guard's throat, reveling as the blood washes over me, spurting out of his severed artery. The second guard gets the same treatment. Then more guards come. There are a lot of them. It's funny, watching them rushing at me, wielding their batons. I hack at another guard, cutting a large hole in his chest. Another ends up with a foreleg hanging lifeless by a single tendon. A third has his face brutally reshaped, and I bury my knife into the skull of the last one, where it sticks.
I look down at my handiwork, smiling at what I've done. This is what I am meant to be doing. I know it. I laugh as a guard gasps for life, slowly bleeding out through a hole where his left foreleg had once been. The blood pool spreads, washing over my hooves and painting the pure white tiles of the hall a deep scarlet. Looking up, I see two nurses, a baby blue earth pony stallion standing over a small light pink unicorn mare with a bright blonde mane.
Laughing maniacally, I step toward the two, pulling out my tenderizer. The stallion steps further in front of the mare. "S-stop right w-where you are!" he yells. I keep walking. I can hear the fear in his voice. I like how it sounds. "I said s-stop!" he continues, his tone becoming increasingly nervous. I keep laughing. "Please!" he yells, desperate, "please just stop!"
I am now only a meter away from the nurse. I look deep into his eyes, relishing the pure, unadulterated fear in his eyes. I say one word. One word that makes the look I see in his eyes all that much better.
"No."
With that, I slam the tenderizer into his head. I hear a satisfying crunch as the metal hammer makes contact, splattering his blood across the wall and adding to the deep red stains in my jacket. The mare screams as the stallion's limp corpse falls onto her, shoving it away as fast as she can.
I look down at her, smiling my most sincere, sweet smile. I really am happy. Her once stark white uniform is now spattered with the blood of her colleagues.
"What's your name?" I ask.
She just stares up at me, shaking. She's being quite rude.
"I asked you a question. I would like you to answer it," I say, my smile growing wider.
"S-Strawberry C-Cream, sir."
"Well, Miss Cream," I say,"I want you to do something for me."
"W-w-what?" she asks.
I lean down close to her, watching as she backs up toward the wall, and whisper something to her.
"Say my name."
She nods, hesitating.
"Well," I ask, "what are you waiting for!"
"Y-yes sir nothing sir!"
I sigh.
"Well then say my name!"
"..."
"Say it!!!"
"1225! Patient 1225!"
I turn around, walking a few feet away before turning back to her, rolling my eyes.
"No, you imbecile!!!" I scream at her, feeling very exasperated. "Say my name!!!"
Strawberry Cream just stares at me, her mouth agape in a silent scream.
"Say it! You must know it!"
She nods again.
"Bl-Bloody M-M..."
"Dear freaking Celestia say my name!!!"
"Bl-Bl-Bloody M-Murder!!!" she screams, closing her eyes and holding her head in her hooves.
"Good," I say, smiling again. "Now that wasn't too hard, was it?"
She doesn't answer.
"Have a nice day, Miss Cream."
Raising the tenderizer up high, I bring the bloodied instrument down upon her, ending her pitiful existence then and there. And then I continue, going on until the entire institution screams Bloody Murder.
And I love it.