Listen, you have to believe me when I tell you this. This is all going to sound crazy. But I’m not crazy, I swear. And you’re proof of this. When I go back, and tell them about you, they’ll all know I was right all this time. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. But how exactly do I start this story? With the River! Of course. It all started... well, no, it didn’t all start at the River, but how I got here... that started with the river. I was walking along the river, and I noticed something shiny, metallic...
The river flowed and gurgled calmly next to the ground beneath her hooves. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, allowing for the most amount of sunlight, but she couldn’t see most of it.The sky was mostly concealed by the trees, with only little bits of bright blue peeking through. The little patches of light caused by the leaves looked absolutely beautiful in the river, though. The water was extremely clear in this section of the river, and you could almost see straight to the bottom.
She had always returned to the river on particularly uneventful days, or whenever she felt she needed to be alone. Thankfully, the latter of those two hadn’t happened in a long while. But there was a time where she would go to the river almost every night, crying, speaking to it, wishing someone would just believe her.
But she didn’t like to think of those days anymore. She used the river’s ambience to calm her and let her be alone with her thoughts. Thoughts about the day’s happenings, books she may have recently read, and sometimes, town gossip. She learned most of what everybody in the town was chattering about from Bon Bon, on account of the fact that she could spark a conversation with anybody about anything, and rumors and such were one of her favorite topics. What had she most recently told her about?
Apparently the something big happened with two of the inhabitants of the Apple Family farm, but she couldn’t remember exactly what, or to whom. Some of the girls that worked at the flower shop were buzzing on about some cute newcomer to the town. The dressmaker came down with some sort of sickness, probably just a flu. But nothing about Lyra herself, thankfully. She liked to stay out of the spectrum of town-talk, especially ever since her breakdown.
She glanced into the river and met eye to eye with her reflection. She looked tired, a lot more than she used to. She sighed and took a few steps back. She wondered, How did this all start? And she thought back to the first time she got lost in the woods, and saw the shadow of an indescribable creature. Then to the dreams, then to the theories, the many, many, theories, the collective town doubt, and her having to keep her mouth shut and letting them all forget about it. And here she was now, as happy as she could pretend to be.
She looked into the sky. There was nothing interesting up there. But she still stared at it, as if something might appear, and she’d miss it if she looked away. She decided she was going to wait ‘til the sun peaked between some of the leaves. Then, she’d leave, return to the town, and when they asked her where she had been, she’d laugh and ask them why they didn’t see her meandering about town. It was the one little trick she had for revenge. They believed her to be crazy, why shouldn’t they have reason to doubt their sanity every now and then?
As she sat waited for her eyes to be whited out by the sun, the sound of the river continued on effortlessly in the background. She noticed a flash of light come into her peripheral vision. She quickly darted her head into the direction of the river. She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn the light was too bright to just be a reflection off the water, and had to be from something in the river. She stepped to the bank, and saw what looked like some sort of gleaming piece of metal just barely visible from the floor of the river. She squinted her eyes, but couldn’t quite make out the shape. Using a little bit of magic, she levitated it out of the water and onto the grass next to her so she could examine it more thoroughly.
It looked a little like a miniature pickaxe, no longer than a ten inches or so. It had a head that rounded top, somewhat like a crescent moon, that came to two points on each side, and then came back into a long, cylindrical shape. The long shape eventually stopped halfway through the entire length of the object, and became thinner, where it closed to a sharp point. On the tip, there was a collection of some dark red material, that should have been washed off in the river, but somehow managed to stay clung to the smooth surface of the metal.
She looked at it for a long time and from many different angles, and the possible potential of the tool still didn’t come to her. The top didn’t seem heavy enough to be used for hammering, or sharp enough to be used for cutting, and the bottom end definitely didn’t seem sharp enough to be able to puncture or penetrated any kind of wood or material like that. But it was too specifically designed to be useless. And what was the red material at the end? She guessed it was a body fluid of some sort, probably blood. Maybe it was a sort of needle? It could have been hollow, and could be filled with medicine, and applied to large wounds, or something similar.
She still couldn’t quite tell the exact use, but she determined by its ‘sterile’ look and what was most certainly blood, that it was probably a medical tool of some sort. But she still had no idea how it functioned, and the curved end was extremely bothering to her. Because if blood was on one end, then that meant that most likely, the object was meant to be held by the other side when applied to the patient. But the two curved divots on its end didn’t lend themselves to being held with hooves, rather a more claw shaped appendage of some sort.
She pushed her initial thought out of her head as quickly as it came into it.
The device laid on the ground still, pointing upstream of the river. Endlessly, the river rushed as she started taking steps in the opposite direction of it’s flow. She was no longer concerned about the device’s purposes, but it’s origin. Curiosity burned in her as she questioned what it could have possibly been doing in the river. Especially in a river in the middle of the Everfree Forest! Of course, there was the possibility that it could have been made by Zecora, but it was too neatly made. She had heard tale of some of the zebra’s creations, and it had always struck her that anything she would have made would have to be created out of materials found in the forest, and Lyra didn’t expect that the minerals or smelting tools required to make such a device were found in bird nests.
She observed the grass along the side of the river in the hope of finding hoofprints. That someone would walk all the way into the depths of the Everfree Forest to merely get rid what looked like a rather valuable medical tool wasn’t a very reasonable explanation, but it was the only logical one she could think of at the moment. The nearest hospital was nowhere close to this river, or any that she could think of, so it wasn’t possible that a doctor could have thrown it out of the window and into an offstream.
Even the idea that she didn’t want to entertain had too many flaws. She negated it right away.
The farther along she walked, the longer the grass got, and the closer together the trees came. She thought this would make pressed down grass easier to see and narrow down the possible paths between trees, which would overall lessen the possible amount of paths someone could walk down. But still, even when she had to suck in and hold her breath to squeeze herself between the trees, she saw no signs that anyone had been there recently. She sighed to herself and started her way back.
None of it made any sense. As far as she could tell, the trees had only gotten more compact the farther upstream they went. And from what she could remember, there were no major landmarks or cities along this particular river anyway, so the chance that someone would happen upon it by accident was slim.
Even if it did have to do with... them... how one of them would have gotten ahold of such a tool without anyone else noticing or there being a big fuss about it was something she couldn’t even fathom.
And besides, she thought to herself, none of them are here. It’s all in your head. It’s all...
As if against her will, her head turned back to the river. Her eyes immediately rested against something thin and white. Possibly made out of some sort of rubber, or possibly latex. It was hanging by a small plant on the bottom of the river, swaying in the current. Even though it was badly torn, she could still make out a base shape with five long appendages sprouting out from the center.
Her eyes widened and her breath became fast and shallow as she stumbled backwards at the sight of it. She should have made sure it wasn’t a hallucination, but she was too stunned. She rebalanced herself and sprinted back down along the river.
I was thrilled and terrified all at once. I finally found the proof I was looking for, only months after I had promised to stop looking for it. I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to tell everyone. But I knew no one would believe me. Even if I showed them, they would just call me crazy. And I had been called crazy too many times. So I went to her, because I knew that even though she wouldn’t believe me, she’d at least let me show her.
She peeked out from the brush, making sure no one would see her emerge from the Forest. Really, she shouldn’t have had to worry, on account of many pony’s fears of the forest being dulled by the fact that Zecora had lived there, proving it wasn’t as dangerous as everyone had once thought. But still, she didn’t want it to be spreading that every time she disappeared for hours on end, it was into the dark and creepy forest full of killer animals.
A couple passed by, and she waited for them to be well out of her line of sight before she walked out from the forest and in the opposite direction of them, back into town.
None of them stared at her as she walked by anymore, and for that she was grateful. She could blend into the background once again, as long as she didn’t look like she was too intent on getting where she needed to go. Even though she wanted to sprint there, she maintained a steady pace, made sure to avoid Twilight and her companions, (no use in trying to get involved with their antics), and took the quickest route to get back to her home that she could think of. But as she neared her and Bon Bon’s house, she realized that her friend probably wouldn’t be home yet. But what to do in the time she had left? At the very least, she had an hour. She turned around, thinking there was something she could preoccupy her time with somewhere in town, and then turned back to her house, thinking she could just wait in there until Bon showed up, and then turned back towards town, still unsure if she could keep herself still that long, then back towards her house, then back towards town...
“Enjoyin’ your dancin, there?” called out a voice she could not see the origin of. She turned to where she thought it came from, and saw nothing. “Over here, brainless.” came the voice again, but from behind her. She swiveled completely around and saw an old, decrepit pony with a faded purple coat and a long, gray mane that concealed her clouded eyes, which stared straight through Lyra. The elderly mare smiled with a mouth that was void of a few teeth. “You’re causin’ a ruckus with that performance of yours.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m just a bit flustered, is all.” Lyra offered, trying to sound as calm as possible. Who was this pony? She had never seen her about before, and Ponyville certainly had a very familiar community, she would have remembered seeing her about.
“Sounds like you’re confused.” said the old mare, laughing a bit. “Wait a second... I recognize you...” she said, taking a step forward, leaning her ear towards Lyra. “You’re... you’re the crazy one!”
All the blood in Lyra’s body immediately ran into her cheeks, and she could feel the world become small around her. “I... I don’t know what you mean.” She said through a suddenly dry throat.
The old mare chuckled to herself. “Tell me more about these humans, and how they’re running around in the forest, will you?” She chuckled again, and again, until the only thing stopping her constant stream of laughter were the phlegm loaded coughs that interjected themselves erratically in between.
Lyra nervously waited for her to stop being so amused by her own words, and calmly replied, “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
The old mare ceased her laughter and spit a wad of spit to the side. “You think I forget a voice? No, no... I remember you. You started out quiet at first, trying to bring it up in small talk with the others, but after they stopped listening to you, you’d scream it! You got so... angry.” She smiled to herself and almost started laughing again, but caught herself before she did. “It was hilarious.”
Lyra shuffled her hooves. “Ma’am, I have to be on my way, but I really think you’re confused.”
As she started to get away, the old mare spat on the ground again. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere. You’re stuck here with the rest of us.”
Confused, Lyra looked back. “What?” But the old mare was simply rocking back and forth, muttering things to herself. Lyra didn’t even care for clarification, she just wanted to be away from that place as soon as possible.
I don’t know what she was on about, but she really unnerved me. I mean, I had never seen her before, and yet somehow, she knew so much about me. Too much. I mean, she could’ve asked anyone else about it, but still, it sounded like she was there for a long time, but I had never seen her, I had never seen her...
She waited at the table. Bon Bon was usually eating dinner by the time she came home, so Lyra assumed that it was the first thing she did when she came home. She wanted to sit down because she was so nervous, but she promised herself that she wouldn’t do that anymore, on account of how the posture she had taught herself was now a habit to her. She wanted to seem as sane as possible to break the news that would undoubtedly make her friend doubt her sanity permanently.
Why was she even doing this? The more she thought about it, the more she could see that what she saw in the river was probably just a plant of some sort that she had never seen before, that she had just reconstructed in her memories to be what she wanted it to be. And it became more and more plausible to her that the tool she found may have belonged to Zecora. Who was she to know what the zebra had access to, or what she could make? She had never visited her abode. Why was she doing this?
She should have left right then. But she was already there, and there was no point in trying to leave. Bon Bon would be home any minute, and by the time Lyra had worked up the courage and willpower to leave, Bon Bon would be in view of the house, and would see Lyra leaving, and would wonder what she was doing home, and then Lyra would have to explain the whole thing anyway. She made a mistake in coming there, she could already tell. But she was going to wait there and rough it out, because she could see no better option.
Eventually, after staring at the door for a long enough time, it eventually did open, revealing Bon Bon, who looked very surprised to see Lyra standing there, eagerly waiting for her.
“Wow, you’re home early.” Bon Bon said, somewhat amused.
Lyra tried to put on a casual smile. “Oh, yeah, you know, today was pretty boring. Thought I'd come home. How was your day?”
Bon walked past her into the kitchen. “My day?” she said from the other room. “Oh, you know. Nothing special happened really. Nopony was at the Sugarcube Corner. I wanted to buy something, but it was closed for some reason.” She walked back, carrying a plate, and placed it on the table. “Anything at all happen to you?”
“Oh, um, I spent some time in the forest today.”
Bon Bon stopped dead in her tracks.
“I didn’t know you were going into the forest again.” she said, slowly walking back into the kitchen.
“Yeah, well, like I said. Today was kinda boring for me, so I just decided to collect some of my thoughts there, maybe get some inspiration for some poetry, or something.”
“Uh-huh, poetry.” Bon Bon walked back into the room, with a small container full of assorted vegetables. “You see anything while you were in there?” she asked, walking back into the kitchen.
“No, nothing really special.”
“Oh! Well that’s good!” she walked back, smiling, carrying a basket full of bread rolls. She set it down on the table and looked at Lyra, somewhat apologetically. “I mean, there’s a lot of dangerous animals in there, it’s a good thing you didn’t run into any of them.” She grabbed the container of vegetables and poured a few onto her plate. As she set it back down, she looked up at Lyra. “Would you like me to grab you a plate?”
“No, no, I’m fine. I grabbed something to eat at the cafe earlier. Maybe a little later, I’ll get some.” She observed as Bon Bon nodded and placed a roll on her plate as well. “Aren’t you going to drink anything with that?”
Bon looked back up at her. “No, I’m trying this new diet, where you don’t drink anything until after you’ve finished your meal. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but apparently, a few of the girls in town tried it and they said it worked wonders.”
“You don’t need to diet.” Lyra said quietly.
“Hmm?” Bon responded with a mouthful of bread.
“I saw something in the river today.” Lyra said, a little bit louder, and a bit more confident, but immediately wishing she hadn’t.
Bon Bon almost choked on her bread. “The river? You mean, a river in the forest?” She coughed a few times. “What... what did you see, exactly?”
Lyra shifted her eyes. “Oh, um, just an odd type of fish. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”
Her friend inhaled deeply, trying to make sure she could still breathe. “What did this fish look like?”
“...a fish.”
“Oh, okay. Thank goodness!” she laughed. “I thought for a minute there, you meant... you know...”
“No.” Lyra lowered her head. “I didn’t mean that at all.”
“Good. Good.” She continued eating, obviously pleased at how the conversation didn’t go the direction she was expecting it to go. Lyra walked into the living room and picked up a book to distract herself from trying to tell her friend what she really wanted to say.
I felt so defeated. I was working myself up to tell her, and I couldn’t even do it. I couldn’t even- I didn’t want to risk it, having her tell someone I was talking about them again. I should’ve put faith in her that she wouldn’t, but I’m still not even sure she wouldn’t have. But that night, when I fell asleep, I had the strangest dreams...
She found herself in the forest again, only the once blue sky was now completely black, with no clouds, stars, or moon to speak of. And yet, somehow, everything around her was visible, only muffled by a light darkness that allowed her to see things in her close obscenity, and only vaguely obscured things in the distance. She walked forward, and it seemed as if the trees moved out of her way as she did, allowing her easy passage through the forest. But whenever she walked, she felt a cold breeze against the back of her neck, that would only stop if she stopped walking.
She walked forward until the ground below her felt wet, and it occurred to her that she should turn her head left. As she did, she saw a memory of her mother reading a storybook to her, only the words her mother was actually saying didn’t match up with the words she was hearing.
“And remember, little pony,” her mother whispered, out of sync with her own mouth. “We are not alone.
There are many other worlds, than the one we call our home.
And you can see these other worlds, and you can always come right back.
You can travel through rips or holes, or loops or leaks, or splits or cuts or cracks.”
Her mother looked down at the younger version of Lyra, and said, perfectly with herself, “remember, you are never forced to stay where others place you.”
Her mother never said this. Her mother never said anything like this. But it wasn’t the first time she heard her say these words, at least in a dream. She would sometimes repeat that little rhyme whenever she felt overwhelmed from all the others that doubted her, but she had to stop herself after a while. She moved along.
The breeze became stronger and stronger, almost knocking her to her hooves. She finally planted herself solidly onto the wet ground, and started sinking.into it. She could tell she wouldn’t be swallowed by the ground, but she would be stuck if she didn’t try to get away soon. She lifted her front right hoof, and could hear the sucking noise as the mud flowed back into the space she had left. She tried this a few more times with all of her other hooves, but kept on getting stuck, until she looked up and saw a rope, dangling from the darkness. She grabbed it with her mouth and was quickly hoisted into the air, and could tell beneath her all the trees gathering at the spot where she once stood, as if they wanted to follow her.
She let go of the rope and found herself standing on a solid nothingness. She opened her mouth to shout something, just to see if she could make any noise, and just as she suspected, she remained silent. She looked over, and saw the rope that had carried her up, tying loops into itself, arranging itself into various words that she never seen before. She looked around to see if there was anything else she might have to witness, but it seemed the slightly sentient rope was the only thing to observe. She looked back at it, and, it was still, hovering in the air, spelling out the word “up.” She obeyed the rope’s command and looked up, and saw nothing.
As she was wondering what it was she was supposed to be looking at, a voice whispered to her, not coming from anywhere. “Hello, Lyra.” it said to her.
Lyra opened her mouth to respond, but then remembered she lacked the ability to talk.
“You were right about them, Lyra. You still are.”
She shook her head no, but the voice persisted.
“You are right about them. But you are wrong about where to find them. There are none in the world you know. But you will have a chance to find them soon.”
She continued to shake her head, getting more and more violent about her refusal.
“There’s a loop that will allow you through. And that loop is in the River. It’s only going to be open for a short amount of time. If you wish to see what you’ve been dreaming about for years, you will need to go through soon.”
She laid her head against the ground and covered herself with her hooves. She knew that she had to leave this obsession of her’s behind.
“Lyra. Wake up and go to the River. You only have a few days left. Time is running out.”
She closed her eyes and tried to block out the voice. When she opened them again, she saw the view of the street right outside of her house. She looked behind her and saw the door, wide open.
She had started sleepwalking again. This wasn’t good.
I convinced her to come with me to the River the next day. I told her that it was important and that it didn’t have anything to do with my delusions. I hated having to lie to her, but I wanted her to know what I saw, and even if she didn’t believe me, especially if she didn’t believe me, I wanted her rational opinion as to what I had seen. It was a mistake, it was a mistake and I know that now.
Lyra trudged through the forest, having memorized the most efficient paths through it, and Bon Bon was several steps behind her, not as confident as Lyra, unsure where it was safe to step and where it wasn’t, and constantly had to recoil from noises she could have sworn were monsters or wild animals. Under any other circumstances, Lyra would laugh and roll her eyes at Bon being so afraid of the forest that she herself was so close to, but on this day she was too focused.
That morning, she had convinced Bon Bon that she needed to take her out to the River because she was convinced that the fish she saw the day before was actually some mythical being from some pony’s tale the both of them knew from their youth. Thankfully, Bon Bon knew right away the tale Lyra was talking about, because Lyra couldn’t for the life of her remember any of the details of the story. She just said something about a wish-granting fish, and Bon Bon was instantly intrigued. How sad she was about to be...
“The first thing I’m wishing for is to get rid of all forests.” Bon Bon said, annoyed.
“You don’t think that will upset some kind of ecosystem balance or something?” Lyra tried to keep up a bit of a sense of humor, so she didn’t seem too determined. She made sure to tease Bon Bon a little bit about being so invested in a foal’s story, just so that she would seem like the level headed one.
“I don’t care. Nopony likes this forest anyway. Um, except for you, that is. But I’m sure you could do fine without it.” She nearly tripped over a root. “Ugh!”
Lyra forced a small laugh out. “Don’t worry, we’re almost there.” She could already hear the River gurgling loudly from where they were. She assumed that it must have rained the night before, causing the River to flow faster. But when it came into view, the water level didn't seem to be any higher than the last time she was there.
“Is this where you saw it?” Asked Bon Bon, catching her breath.
“This is the River, but not the exact place I saw it. It was upstream a ways.” She started walking through the path of trees. “It’s not too far a walk from here, but you’re going to have to squeeze yourself between some trees.”
“Geez, if anypony else knew that I was going into the Everfree because of some stupid pony tale, they’d all think I was crazy.”
Then you’d really know how it feels, came a voice from Lyra’s head.
The voices came back. This really wasn’t good.
She slipped between the trees, with much less effort than it required her the first time she came to the spot. She brushed it off as her body already knowing how much she had to contort herself to get between the trees, because Bon Bon, who had never been through, was definitely having trouble working her way behind Lyra.
Maybe if she didn’t spend so much time in the house...
“It’s right about here, I think.” Lyra said as she looked into the water, where the five-appendaged mass of rubber was clinging desperately to its stick, and Bon Bon was behind her, desperately trying to shove herself between two tall trees.
“Is it?” She suddenly became very enthusiastic. “Let me see it first!” She finally burst forward and fell straight onto her face, but quickly sprang up and turned her head to where Lyra was looking. Her face immediately melted from one of excitement to one of worry, as she looked up from the River to Lyra.
“What... what is this?”
She doubts you.
“This is...”
“Is this why you brought me here?”
Oh no, she doesn’t appreciate spending time with you...
“This is proof! I needed someone else to see it...”
“Proof of what? It doesn’t look like anything, just trash!”
She really is dim, isn’t she?
“How can you not see it? It’s clearly made for...”
“No! I’m not going to take any more of this craziness you’re shoving down my throat!”
“Please! I swear I’m not...”
You should get rid of her.
And then, it all happened so fast... the water from the river came up... made... a hand. And it took her in. I reached for her, tried to stop her from going in... I even felt her coat... I had a solid grasp on her... but she still fell in. But as she passed the surface of the water and went in, she was gone. I knew... right then... I found the loop.
I jumped in after her, and suddenly, the world was spinning... spinning...
She saw a dim light and swam towards it. Everything was blurry, but she could still tell that her front legs had changed from a light blue to a sort of apricot-ish color. She pierced the surface of the water, and saw not a forest, but a city street, with a single street light illuminating the road that lead down into darkness, buildings on either side. She looked at the other side, and saw a tall, round creature standing on two legs, concealed in shadow.
“Dear, what are you doing in the river?” it called out to her.
“Who... what are you?” she responded, voice shaking from the cold and from fear.
“Just a man worried about a potential hypothermia victim.” It said, a bit of laughter in its voice. “Here, let me give you a hand.” It kneeled down to her and extended it’s upper extremity, which at the end didn’t come to a hoof, but to five long, individual appendages, completely devoid of any fur.
She paddled closer to it, and extended her front leg, which she saw had the same appendages at the end of it. When she saw this, she recoiled and observed the rest of her body. Everything about her was now apricot, and she had the same five extremities at the end of her back legs, only much shorter. She looked back up at the creature.
“What am I?” she asked.
“Well, assuming how you just went swimming in a river in the dead of night, stark naked, I’d say completely insane.” It laughed again.
She simply looked back up at the creature, defeated. It suddenly reached forward and wrapped its appendages around her front leg and pulled her up to shore. “Come now,” it said. “We’ll get you dried off and dressed up proper.”
She tried at first to get on all fours, but realized quickly that it was much easier to stand up on her back legs. After a few steps, she was walking as though she had been doing it her entire life. Then she realized how cold she was and started shivering.
The creature walked her back to a large white building, with many windows built into the walls. It pulled some keys out of its pocket and opened a door, where light flooded onto its face, revealing that it had a thick white mustache, and glasses.
It walked slightly ahead of her through long hallways containing many doors with small windows that showed empty rooms, with one bed and one other creature sleeping in each of them.
“Many of our patients are sleeping, it would be best if you kept quiet, as not to wake them.” It said, looking back at her for a quick second.
“Patients?” Lyra said, rather loudly. In a more hushed tone, she continued, “are you a doctor?”
He laughed and started nodding. “Yes, indeed. But I’m more a doctor for the mind, than the body. Although I do deal with the patient’s physical needs as well, sometimes. For when they get too... troublesome.”
“Troublesome? Do you deal with insane po... humans?” Lyra guessed.
“Yes! And I appreciate that you still refer to them as humans, so many people seem to forget that even though these poor beings are broken, they still retain their humanity.”
Lyra listened in wonder, and reflected upon the appropriateness of her situation. Of course she would be brought to an institution for crazy humans. She’d fit right in.
As they walked past other hallways, she saw what looked a hospital gown, only very oddly shaped, probably because it wasn’t meant to go on a pony’s body. She looked at the man and asked, “What’s that doing there?”
“Oh, that?” he said, only stopping to look at it for a brief second. “Oh, that belonged to a female patient. She somehow managed to leave her room, and tried to escape.”
She gasped. “Escaped? Is she dangerous? Is anyone in danger?”
He laughed. “No, we caught her, right before she got too far away. She tried to cross the river. Same one I just found you in.”
“Is she... crazy?”
“Oh yes. But not violent, no. She suffers from major delusions, and occasionally has relapses where she loses most of her memory. It's a shame, really, we'll get through to her, and it will finally seem like we're making progress, but then she'll revert back to her delusion at the strangest of times. We had just got her to accept the fact that she was in fact, just a regular woman, and not what she believed she had been. But then, something happened that made her stop trusting us, and see us as evil. Thankfully, or maybe not so thankfully, she had a relapse right as she was crossing the river, and forgot what she was doing completely.”
“Well, that sure is lucky of you!”
“Yes, indeed it is.” He stopped in front of a large white door and opened it. “Please, wait here. I’ll fetch you something to wear.”
She waited and watched as he disappeared into the room, and looked all around her. She was still a little damp from the river, and was forming a small puddle underneath her.
“You try to swim out, too?” called a voice she could not see the origin of. She turned to where she thought the voice was coming from, and saw nothing. “Over here, brainless.” She turned completely around and saw an old, decrepit human pressing her face through a tiny window in one of the doors. “I can hear the water falling off of you from here.”
Lyra jumped back as she saw her. “Are you the patient that tried to escape?” she whispered.
The old human laughed, showing that she was missing a couple of her teeth. “No, you are.”
“No, I’m not a patient here.” Lyra clarified. “I’m... not from anywhere around here at all.”
“Yeah, you’re a little horsey, aren’t ya?”
“Yes, I’m a pony! How did you know?”
“Cause that’s all you’ve been talking about for the last month you’ve been here!”
“I... I’ve never been here in my life, I can assure you that.”
“Really? I coulda sworn... eh, whatever. My eyesight’s completely gone. Maybe I mistook ya for someone who sounds like you.”
“I... yes. That’s probably what happened.”
“Unless you really are just crazy, and I’m a figment of your imagination.” She started to laugh again, and then imitated neighing sounds.
“No, I... I don’t think that’s what happened.”
The old woman continued to laugh, and then started to chant, in a sing-songy voice, “Zap my brain until it fries, stick an ice pick in my eye.”
Lyra was about try and insist that she remain quiet, but behind her, the door opened, and the man walked out, holding a towel and a fresh hospital gown. She looked back at him, and then to the old human, but she was gone from the window.
He handed her the towel. “And when you’re dry, put this on.” He handed her the hospital gown. He started walking down the hallway. Lyra looked once again to see if the woman would show her face again, but the window remained empty. She started drying herself off as she followed him down the corridors.
He stopped in front of a wooden door and pulled out his keys again. He unlocked the door walked inside. “Please, come in.” he insisted.
She followed and saw an office, with a desk with a chair in front of it, various framed official-looking pieces of paper hung up on a wall, filing cabinets in the corner, and other various knick-knacks here and there. On the desk was a picture of some other human with a similar but darker colored mustache, no hair on the top of his head, and similar glasses. Next to it, a newspaper, with a headline that read ‘JFK WINS ELECTION’. As he sat down, he picked up the newspaper and threw it into a wastebasket next to his desk. “Old news around here.” he said, smiling. “So, how are you feeling?”
“Cold.” Lyra responded. She slipped on the hospital gown over her upper extremities. “I’m hoping this will help.”
The man laughed joyfully as he sat down. “It won’t do much, but it will help you feel more at home.” He motioned at her to sit in the chair in front of him, and she obliged. “So, what do you call yourself? I’m Dr. Freeman.”
“I’m Lyra.” she said, wrapping her upper extremities around herself, in an attempt to keep herself from shivering.
“Hmm. That’s a very pretty name. What brings you here?”
She looked down, and tried to think of a place where she could start. “Well... do you know about loops?” she asked.
He shook his head no. “I’m afraid I don’t. Please, inform me about what they are.”
“Well, I... I come from a different world than this one. One, where, instead of humans, ponies run the world. From what I can tell, it is very similar to yours.
The man furled his brow and brought his appendages to his face. She could tell he didn’t believe her.
“Listen, You have to believe me when I tell you this. This is all going to sound crazy. But I’m not crazy, I swear...”
“I jumped in after her, and suddenly, the world was spinning... spinning...”
The man raised his upper extremity. “Stop.” He looked up at her. “I’ve heard enough.”
Lyra looked at him pleadingly. “I know its all a lot to take in, but I swear it’s the absolute truth.”
The man nodded. “This friend of yours, how long have you known her?”
She hesitated. “A very long time, almost my entire life.”
He leaned back in his chair and put his appendages over his stomach area. “Do you think it’s possible the two of you are sharing a delusion, believing both of yourselves to be ponies?”
Tears started to well in her eyes. “No, I swear, I swear I’m not crazy. Please, be the one other living thing that thinks I’m not crazy.” She leaned her head forward.
“Lyra, I deal with insane individuals for a living. This is an intense dissociative delusion you’re having.”
“No, please...” she began openly sobbing.
After the sound of her cries filled the room, the man sighed, and finally said, “Alright. I’ll believe you.”
“You... you will?” she managed to choke out.
“Yes, a delusion of this magnitude, especially between two people, is very unlikely.” He leaned forward and began wiping his glasses. “I suppose an alternate world populated by ponies isn’t the most crazy thing I’ve heard as a doctor.”
She collapsed out of relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“And I do believe we found Bonnie, your friend.”
She immediately sat up. “Oh you have? How is she?”
He smiled weakly. “We found her a week ago, about. She was very distraught, talking about many of the same things you were, with ponies and whatnot. She talked about you, said you were right about everything.”
“Really? Please, can you take me to her? She must be so worried about me, about everything...”
“Yes, of course. I’ll let you spend the night here, and then, since you seem like you know how to get to your home from here, I’ll let you leave tomorrow.”
She stood up out of excitement. “Oh, thank you so much sir!”
He stood with her and walked towards the door. “Yes, well, you’ll have to keep your voice down when we travel through the halls.”
She nodded happily and followed after him.
“I’ll tell some nurses that you’re here. So that they don’t get alarmed when they see you with your friend.” He stepped in front of a large white door. “She may be a little tired. We gave her some treatment to help with her, um... anxiety. She’s probably still very affected by it. The treatment, that is.”
She walked in and saw a human creature lying still upon a white sheeted-bed. She took a small step towards it, and behind her, the door was slammed shut, and she could hear footsteps loudly walking away.
She took a steps towards the human. “Bon Bon?” she called out.
The body jerked awake. Lyra could see in her eyes, this was definitely her friend, now a human, with her.
“Bon Bon, it’s me, Lyra!”
She didn’t respond, didn’t even look at her. She just continued to stare blankly at the ceiling.
“Bon, it’s me, I’m here...”
She touched Bon Bon, and nothing happened. Lyra looked at her eyes, and saw that her right one was bloodshot, and had a scar in the tear duct. She also noticed that she was drooling all down her chin and the side of her cheeks.
“Bon, are you...?”
From down the hall, she could hear the old human laughing.
