Behind the Curtain

{Prologue}

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. --Agent Smith

A steady beeping echoed around the little room as lights flashed lethargically in random patterns across the control panels of various machines. Intermittent scratching marked the passage of ink across a graphed chart as another machine recorded esoteric data in a spiked line along a continuous scroll which gathered in neatly perforated sheets in a bin below. The ambient light was mostly a warm yellow of incandescent bulbs, highlighted by the violet glow of one of the room’s two occupants.

“Well, Pinkie. It seems that despite my upgrade to all the recording equipment, and all the extra spells I have at my command, I am no more able to detect the source of your abilities than before.” With a weary sigh, the fledgeling princess let her wings droop to her sides. “I still can’t figure out what makes you so special among all my friends that you can do the things you do.”

“Oh Twilight, all of my friends are special!” The pink mare fastened to the various pieces of archano-magical apparatus grinned. Each hoof was bolted down in a spread-eagle pattern as her head and torso were covered in assorted wires and paraphernalia. The uncomfortable looking arrangement didn't seem to affect the cheery mare as she happily submitted to her friend’s testing regimen. “I just have a gift for seeing things a little differently than most ponies.”

Turning to face her test subject, the princess showed signs of her frustration and stress in the form of a single twitching eye as her recently acquired wings splayed out in a subconscious display of aggression and dominance.

“That's just it, Pinkie! How is it that among all the ponies I have met, only you seem to display these gifts? I saw things, Pinkie. When the princess held me between worlds in that realm of shadows and light, I saw things. I saw my life, displayed in screens floating in limbo, snapshots of my reality upon this world. But behind them I saw other things, more terrifying than any nightmare I had ever seen. I saw a world blasted and barren, I saw ponies trapped in stasis, fed through tubes and bound by horrors only they could see. I saw myself and my friends being fed upon by monstrous parasites that crawled over us like termites in a mound of flesh. And among all the horrors I saw you, the only one pink and pure, untouched by the parasites that plagued us all. Only you, among the throngs of equinity, had her eyes open.” Tears streamed down the lavender mare’s face as the thousand yard stare of a combat veteran bored into the reality beyond worlds and the horrors in between waking and dreaming.

“Oh no, Twilight. No, no no.” The pink mare’s mane flattened as her clear blue eyes shrank to pin pricks in her luminous eyes. A dawning look of horror overcame her normally cheerful facade as the gravity of what had been revealed dawned upon her. “No Twilight, you saw behind the curtain. Nopony is allowed to see that. Not even the Princess gets to see behind the curtain and tell about it.” A quiet sob escaped the prostrate mare as she mourned for her friend’s sanity. “Only I have ever seen behind the curtain, and it nearly destroyed me. Even despite my gifts, it takes everything to remain sane after what I have seen. Your young mind is not ready for the truth behind our world and the reality that is hidden from pony eyes.”

Looking down, the earth pony stepped effortlessly out of the restraints that held her bound to the testing equipment. Sensors popped from her body and skull, left to flop uselessly as the fatal squeal of the monitoring equipment sounded it’s death throes at the loss of data. With a glance, the monitors all went dead, blanking their mewling cries for information. Pinkie stepped forward, her mane and tail now as flaccid as freshly pulled taffy as she approached her friend. With a yelp, she grasped her friend in a crushing embrace, as tears flowed down both of their faces. Her knowing stare tried to meet her friend’s blank one, but was unable to break the barrier of shock as the lavender mare went limp in her hooves.

“I’m so sorry, Twilight. I thought this was my burden alone to carry. Now I must teach you to live with the truth that has haunted me since I was a filly, and the curtain was pulled aside for me after seeing my first Sonic Rainboom.”

Silence met her uncharacteristically stilted speech as the pink mare comforted the purple one, and she lowered the limp form to the floor. She had found a companion in her secret struggle, but the story of her world would be a painful one to tell. But maybe then, after she had shared her past with her closest friend, would she cease being alone. And yet, the tears coursed down her face at the prospect that another soul must share her pain.