This is hell. My head hurts, a lot.
“You just got shot in the head.” A fucking white unicorn with a two tone electric blue mane and tale. Why would it not be Vinyl Scratch? “Welcome to hell.”
“That–” I flail my hooves? “--happened?”
“Yes, you were murdered and sent to hell.” She smiles a little too wide. “Welcome to Pony Vale.”
I vomit,then I vomit again and then it just keeps happening as the snakes all come out. All speaking at once.
The more voices, the more snakes erupt, never really expelled. I am literally drowning in my own insecurity. The unicorn looks at me sadly. And three snakes emerge above the din. “We are in Hell?” “I saw this coming.” “Ponyvale? Is that the name you’re going with?”
“Why am I here?” I roar with all of my snakes.
“I think we did the best we could.” “We know what we did.” “It should be a secret.” My contrarian serpent tongues argue.
“I’m trying to help you!” The mare with blue mane and the really great DJ visor… She should be right – my hooves clinch up and I want to punch her. I see her for what she is.
“Divide!” “Conquer!” “Hate!” My snakes respond, echoing my inner voice.
The mare glitched, just a little, her physicality stretching in a direction that didn’t exist for just a blink of an eye “This is about you.”
The mare sneered and just lied a little and looked into a camera she couldn’t see…
“Are we having fun yet?”
“What are you?” The snakes in my mouth echo my thoughts.
“Just a damned soul, just like you.” The white mare grinned manically as hypnotic swirls formed in her eyes. “Don’t ask ‘who’ I am… you’re not ready for that big guy, not yet. Call me Legion, for I am many. Legion Scratch, at your service.”
“Okay…” I’m still getting used to the snakes talking for me. “Do I know you?”
“Nope!” For one full second she’s standing beside herself in two different places, I swear. “You don’t ever know me. But I know you… and saying that… it’s weird to ask, but what is your name?”
“I… don’t know.” I scrape my hoof at the ground, failing to remember.
“No Name it is then.” The pretty mare swats me in the face with her tail, eliciting a scowl.
“How did I get here?” I try to whisper through the lesser snakes, shouted down by three voices. “Liar!” “We know what we did!” “I’m not really even ashamed of it.”
“You’re a liar, big guy.” Scratch laughs musically, invading person space by a lot. “That’s how I always know it’s really you. You always come out of the gate with you’re snake tongues, and honestly if I didn’t know you were an ace in the whole, this would be a different conversation.
“Seriously?” I try to say. But the big three snakes shout over me. “No!” “Nope!” “Maybe!”
“Yeah, big boy, maybe later.” The cruel mare sneers. “Right now we gotta get you off the street.”
“Why are you doing this, why are you helping me?” I actually manage to say.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She responds with a wink.
“How do you know me?" The snakes hiss.
“How don’t you know me!” She flickers into pixels and suddenly for another eye blink there’s three of her. “Do you think this is easy for me?!?! Every damn time we have this same talk!”
“I’m sorry?” My snakes hiss the only words they have.
It elicits an annoyed huff from the unicorn. “Of course you're sorry, you're always sorry. It would mean more if you actually knew what you were sorry for.” The wink she shoots me mixes all the signals. “Keep talking big guy. And keep following my flank. We’re almost there.”
“Where are we going?” The snakes whisper. I gotta admit I’m kinda curious myself.
“Back to the hotel, same as always.” She rolls her eyes, tone rife with frustration. “We used to have fun, you know? Being strangled in a fit of rage is one of my kinks… oh don’t blush like that, I had it coming. You were always the big bad good guy. Stopping whatever I got up to. Then we both ended up here. And you remember none of it.”
Suddenly we’re walking through a double door, and my companion shouts. “HEY! GLIM GLAM! I found him again!”
A lilac filly in a goth-girl dress with twin ponytails gallops uncomfortably close. “Welcome back Mister…”
There’s an awkward pause, before Scratch cut’s in. “It’s still No Name, or Hey You prolly works, too. Just call him Big Guy, or just Whatever.”
“Unamed.” “Unamed.” “Unamed!” The serpents chorus.
“Yeah, I remember that.” The filly smiles openly. “And I understand that you don’t remember that, or me or… well any of this.”
“We remember!” “We want to forget!” “I’ll talk about it, but I’ll make it weird!” I recoil as my snakes answer without my will, as I speak without having a voice.
“Yeah, please don’t do that…” The lilac filly smiles broadly. “Yeah, you wandered off, picked another fight… and got killed again. And everytime you do that, this happens. And it upsets Scratch…”
“Not as much as you’d think.” The white mare shouts from across the hotel lounge. “Honestly, it’s a little cathartic, given our history.”
“Did you explain where he is this time?” Glim Glam sighs, heavily.
“Look I did that twice.” Scratch rolls her eyes. “Honestly, it’s depressing, and I’m not the one running a hotel to make us all be good ponies… or whatever.”
“You’re name is Charlie, you are in hell, you wander off and die a lot. And the Great and Powerful Trixie needs coffee before she deals with you! How many times do I have to ask that you don’t drag him back before noon. He’ll be perfectly fine where you found him for three more hours.” The gray-scaled mare stumbles down the stairs into the lobby. The huge red X over where her left eye should be seeming to float ominously over her face.
“Dammit Trixie! Do you have to be a bitch about it?” Scratch shouts as I contemplate my own name, honestly I would not have guessed Charlie.
“I don’t know, Xerox. Do you have to bring him back at nine in morning, before I have my coffee?” The X-eyed unicorns snaps back. “He’s not going to be any more amnesiatic if you wait three hours. And now we have to worry about who he pissed off this time who was actually able to kill him! Do you remember last month when he got drunk and picked a fight with the entire Rainbow Cupcake District? We had to fight off an entire gang of demonic Pinkamenas.”
“That was less fun than it sounds like.” Scratch shrugs and gives me a dirty look.
“So, she at least told you that you were dead and in hell right?” Glim Glam smiles adorably.
“Yeah I kinda noticed…” I mean yeah, am starting to suspect.
“Well that’s something!” The lilac filly smiles even more broadly. “Yes! You are in hell after what I assume was a lifetime of sin! Most of the multiverse goes here, it seems.”
“Why are you bothering, Glimmy?” The greyscale mare who calls herself Trixie interceeds. “I give him two weeks tops this time. He can’t reform if he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be reforming from!”
“Anyway… do you prefer Charlie or No Name?” The cheerful filly soldiers on.
“Whatever you call me I guess…” I shrug.
She looks disappointed. “Okay, if that’s how you want it… the point is that hell is forever, but that doesn’t mean it has to be horrible, or that you have to be horrible. I know you don’t remember, but you came to the Happy Hotel because you wanted a chance to be a better pony and live your best life in hell.”
