Chapter 1: Existence Crisis
Twilight opened her eyes to find knives of earth aimed straight at her chest. She feared at any moment one would fall and impale her.
“What?” Twilight breathed. The ground beneath her was cold and wet, with a slimy feel that could only be from mildew. The air smelled of limestone and an inky wetness that was almost overpowering to the nostrils. Intermingled with this odd mix of odors was brimstone, causing Twilight to grimace on instinct. Where in blazes did I wake up?
Staring more intently at the ceiling, Twilight was relieved to find the roof wasn’t trying to stab her;¢ it was just stalactites. Okay Twilight, just a cave. Normal rock formations and everything. Not huge, terrifying knives ready to tear you to shreds. Just rocks. A drop of water falling from the tip nearest to her and hitting her nose confirmed her suspicions.
“Where am I?” Twilight asked aloud. When a servant didn’t immediately answer her, uncertainty crept into her mind. It wasn’t like the castle staff to not attend to her immediately upon awakening.
No one’s answered me, I’m in some type of cave all alone, and I have no idea how I got here. That can’t be good. Twilight closed her eyes tight, and after a few quick breaths, she opened them again to find her view once more filled with the dank cavern roof.
Well, that accomplished nothing. She winced as another water droplet struck her head. And just sitting here isn’t getting me anywhere either. I need to find out where I am.
Getting to all fours, Twilight wiped off the grime that had stuck to her coat. She had removed her usual royal garb when she went to sleep that night, and already the bone-chilling wetness of the cavern floor had her shivering. Mucus was beginning to fall from her sniffly nose, and when she breathed out, fog escaped from her lips. Okay, by the stalactites, natural rock formations, and low light, my first guess is that I’m in a cave. Now all I need to figure out is how I got here. Twilight shivered again.
Twilight scanned her surroundings. It was more of the same bleak cavern set up from before. There were slimy, uneven walls where mold and moss grew in a disturbing green abundance, along with a claustrophobically short roof. Turning her head in several directions, Twilight’s fears were confirmed. She was stuck in a dank, dark cave with no exit in sight. No exit except an odd, blue glowing doorway directly in front of her. It was so faint she hardly caught it was first.
With no other direction to head, she made her way forward through fetlock deep ick. Twilight arrived at the doorway, shivering from her mucky ordeal. Taking a peek outside, Twilight’s gulped as a chill ran up her spine. Uh… wow. I did not see this coming.
That nagging, claustrophobic feeling had dissipated the instant she looked outside. Now the roof of the cavern was raised so high, she could barely see the top. Heck, you could probably fit all of Canterlot castle in here, she thought.
There was a good chance she was right. The shore Twilight could see didn’t have an endpoint in sight. Just gray sand for miles on end, all sources of color gone, other than a faint blue light shining from who knows where. Judging by the steam still leaving her breath, she knew she was pretty deep beneath the surface of the world.
The only other scenery was the river that created the beach, a low fog hanging over its black waters. It flowed along lazily down the banks, the waves calmly breaking on the shore without disturbing the sand a bit. Just looking at the river made her feel her troubles slowly slipping away. So slow and steady, almost mesmerizing…
Twilight, snap out of it! Gritting her teeth, Twilight forced herself to look away. She took her first steps on the beach. The sludge from before mixed with the sand and created a grainy, mucky substance that plastered her hooves. Twilight instantly regretted not wearing her royal hoof slippers that night.
Where in Celestia’s name am I? Twilight thought, silently praying for an answer. None came. Well, if no one can tell me, I might as well as find out myself.
Twilight stood still for a moment, holding her head up high with a confident smile on her lips as she closed her eyes. She tapped into the magic of her horn, summoning the usual amount of energy it took to cast a locator spell. The smile was soon replaced with a frown as her eyes flew open. Growling under her breath, she tapped her horn impatiently. Hello, magic, would you mind working right about now? Kind of important!
Gritting her teeth, she poured much more magic to her horn, so much that her head was beginning to hurt. But try as she might, she couldn’t even pull off a simple horn-glowing spell. It was like a wall of some sort was blocking her flow of magic.
“Great, just great,” Twilight muttered. “What else could possibly go wrong?”
The temptation of fate was too great to pass up, and so it was met with the usual repercussions.
A boat appeared from the thick fog of the river, a figure sheathed in shadows piloting it with a massive oar. Where the boat had come from, Twilight didn’t know. One minute there was only the swirling, unending mass of the thick fog, and then the next second the shadow-ridden craft glided through the water straight for her. It was old, the wood cracked and moldy from the river’s abuse while certain sections of the craft were falling apart from rot. The boat was big enough for just the ferryman and one other passenger, and even then Twilight was uncertain it wouldn’t dip beneath the waves. Twilight couldn’t believe it could float without springing a leak.
The fog wrapped around the figure piloting the boat like a second cloak. The only light that could be seen was from the oil lamp hanging from the top of the oar. It bobbed up and down from each stroke the ferryman took.
Okay… this can’t be a good sign. The forbidding presence of the floating craft and its ferryman left her filled with nothing but dread.
The water parted before the boat like an old friend, the oar not even needed to guide it to its spot by the banks. Before too long the front of the boat crunched into the sand, while the water drew back to allow Twilight to approach the craft.
The figure in black turned his head towards Twilight. The glow of the lampfire reflected off his eyes, making them shine in the dark depths of the hood; though Twilight had the creepy suspicion that his eyes actually did shine of their own accord.
The ferryman made no motion for Twilight to approach him. He just stood there, still and unmoving. His eyes gazed right through her, boring past her soul like a drill and hammering through her very existence. Whatever that thing was, Twilight didn’t have the faintest clue.
She didn’t know whether to call out to the figure or run away as fast as she could. He could be the person that kidnapped her and placed her in the cave in the first place. Or he could be her rescuer and now was her only chance to escape. With few other options left, Twilight cleared her throat and quietly asked, “Uh… e-excuse me, do y-you know where I am?”
The figure continued to lean on his oar, lamp lazily swinging at the top.
Well, this is just great. I had to get the mysterious stranger. Just my luck. Taking another few steps forward, Twilight asked, “Please, sir… or madam, whichever you prefer, can you tell me where I am? I woke up in a cave not too far away from here, and I don’t have the faintest idea how I arrived.” Twilight tried her best attempt at a faux smile. “And you know how troublesome that can be for a pony—erm, or whatever you are. So I was just wondering if you’d be ever so helpful with pointing out the exit to me...”
A whisper so low it could put Fluttershy to shame escaped the figure’s lips.
Twilight’s ears perked, and she walked closer to the figure. “Pardon me, what was that you just said?”
“I have been waiting,” he rasped. It was as though someone had cut out his throat, stuffed it with broken glass, and set it aflame.
Twilight took a step back in surprise. “W-waiting for what?” She hastily caught her backstep, trying in vain to make it appear she hadn’t been caught off guard.
“For you,” the ferryman answered.
“Well, I don’t believe we’ve met before,” Twilight inched her way closer, but still kept that wide berth between them. “Though I think you may have heard of me. I’m—”
“Princess Twilight Sparkle,” the ferryman interrupted. “Like I said, I have been waiting for you.”
“How can you be waiting for me?” Twilight asked. She peered deeper at the dim light that barely illuminated the ferryman. “We haven’t even met before. Are you even a pony?”
“I am before your time,” the ferryman said. “Much before your time.”
“Okay… but that still didn’t answer my first question.”
The ferryman raised a hand, the skin of his forearm like that of old leather, discolored and cracked. “I am Charon. The ferryman who brings the souls of the dead, damned, and deceased from the world of the living to the world of the dead. I wait for all those entering the afterlife, willing and unwilling. You are no exception, Twilight.”
“After… afterlife? Me, here, now? But that shouldn’t be possible!”
“We all die sometime.” The ferryman raised his skeletal hand to point a single skinny digit at her. “That time for you just happens to be now. Or, more realistically speaking, about fifteen minutes ago. I couldn’t catch the specific time you ceased to be alive, so sorry about that.”
“Now? But that shouldn’t be so.” Twilight shook her head. “I’m immortal. I know I am, because the princess told me, and she’s never wrong. I haven’t aged a day in the past couple of decades. Just yesterday I felt young and healthy and as fit as ever, and all of the sudden I end up in the afterlife, dead? That just isn’t possible.”
“Possibility isn’t a necessity of life. Destiny is. Your destiny was to die on this night, and so fate has decreed it to happen.” Charon’s golden eyes grew brighter for a moment. “Even your immortality could not change the path your soul is to take. Don’t deny what has transpired against you, Twilight, for this is your final resting place now.”
“What does my soul have to do with anything? I didn’t die of old age,” Twilight said, pouting while her hoof tapped her chin. The better question is, what did I die from? “I could have died from a stroke, or maybe even a heart attack in my sleep. Though if that happened it would have been likely I would have woken up from that happening to me. Maybe a fire instead? Carbon dioxide inhalation from the smoke could have definitely have put me under while I was sleeping. Or maybe even—”
“You didn’t die,” Charon cut in.
“I knew it!” Twilight cried out triumphantly, pointing a hoof at Charon before his eyes turned a shade redder, making her return her hoof back to the ground.
“Don’t grow hopeful, now. That just makes the reality harder to deal with. You died in the sense that your soul is no longer with your physical form. As for your body…” Charon shrugged. “I do not know. I only deal with the souls, not the flesh. Much less… messy.”
“So what you’re saying is that I am still technically alive, but I’m still technically dead as well?” Twilight asked. Her brow furrowed as she searched for any indication of emotion on Charon’s face, such as a smile, a frown, anything at all to show her she was wrong.
“Your soul is in the underworld. For all I know, your body can be perfectly alive up above and still fast asleep,” Charon said. “Or it could have died in a horrific way of some sort. Heart attack, stroke, the ceiling caving in on it. But like I said, I don’t deal with the living. Though the dead sure do like to gab their jaws off about it.”
Twilight had to bite down hard on her lip to hold back a groan of frustration. “Can you please explain to me—in words—how an immortal like me can end up in the afterlife?” Twilight asked.
“An immortal like you?” Charon whispered. The icy chill of the fog grew heavier. “What would ever make you think something as foolish as that?”
“I just told you. Since I’m an alicorn, I can’t die of old age. That’s what immortal means.” Twilight’s muzzle scrunched up as she gazed intently at Charon. “Isn’t it?”
“No matter what magic you cast on your body or mind, your soul follows the rules just like all other mortals. You are no god,” Charon said. “No amount of magic can change that.”
“But Celestia and Luna said—”
“I have collected the coins from those two years ago.” Charon opened up his cloak, revealing a heavy bag of clinking coins hanging from his neck. “And I never forget a payment.”
Twilight’s mouth hung agape. Words churned in her head, but she couldn’t quite grasp the right ones to use. “Say wh-what now?”
“Luna died first. Then Celestia. Strange, since it’s usually the older ones that give out first, but I digress. They gave up their payments and I ferried them across. The same with most mortals that end up here.” Charon rested both his hands on his oar, the lantern top swinging left and right, the dim candle light casting shadows with every movement. “You are no exception.”
“But Luna and Celestia are alive! I talk to them daily. They eat, they breathe, for pete’s sake—Celestia was my foalhood teacher! How can either of them be dead?” Twilight shouted, a line of spittle hanging down from her lip. “How can you possibly tell me they’re in some type of afterlife if they’re alive? How?”
“Their souls no longer wander the mortal planes. Their bodies, however, are none of my concern,” Charon said. “My domain is the River Styx and the souls that arrive at its shores. That’s about as far as my concern for them go.”
“But how can Celestia and Luna have died but still be alive? It… it just doesn’t make any sense!”
“Destiny isn’t supposed to make sense,” Charon said, bitterness seeping into his cracked voice. “The fates decree how long one lives, and no one can beat the fates. Better ‘immortals’ than you have tried, and failed miserably. While you can keep your physical bodies young and whole till the end of time, your soul is still mortal. Souls will always return to the underworld when their time is up. That’s just how it works, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to change that.”
Twilight stamped her hoof on the sand of the river’s shore. “That doesn’t make any sense either. If somepony is destined to die, then wouldn’t they actually die? How can their soul just leave their body?”
“Does a body truly need a soul?” Charon asked.
“Well… I would suppose so,” Twilight replied, her voice hesitant and slow. “What else would a body be? Skin, organs, blood, muscles… all an empty shell without a soul. There would be no point.”
“The body still functions without the soul. It does not pump the blood to the heart, allow the lungs to breathe in air, the muscles to contract, or the brain to function.” The lantern started to dim as Charon’s eyes grew brighter, the golden light the only focus of Twilight’s vision as everything else faded to black. “Your soul is merely a guest in your body, which returns back to its rightful domain. But your body would not release your soul normally upon death because of what magic you used to make yourself live forever. So it returned on its own accord.”
“But how? Why? What will happen to my old body now?” Twilight asked, each question more hurried than the next.
“That is not of my concern and neither is it of yours, now that you are here.” Charon lifted his oar up from the banks and placed the paddle against the shore. He leaned against it. “We have already wasted enough time talking. I have countless more souls to ferry, and your time has been up for far too long. The underworld beckons.”
“But I’m not ready!” Twilight exclaimed. “This is just a bad dream! Just a crazy nightmare I’m having, and that’s it! Or… or this is some evil magic being cast on me! Yes! This is obviously some nasty ploy by… by… someone who is messing with me! And you’re in on it too! My friends will save me, and you’ll be sorry!”
“Twilight, half of your friends are already dead,” Charon said. “Pinkie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash… Applejack’s time is drawing near as well. No one can save you. Now, get in the boat.”
Twilight stared at the ground, her face hidden in shadows much like Charon’s.
“Twilight, you can stay on these shores and wander aimlessly for all of eternity, or you can come with me,” Charon stated firmly, waving his hand at the back seat of his craft. “If you do not, I have wasted my time and you your payment. And that is a precious thing to waste.”
“I can’t,” Twilight faintly mumbled.
“Is eternal damnation what you would rather consider?” Charon asked. “Because I can leave you right here to become another lost soul, just like the other countless millions. Is that the afterlife you desire, Twilight? Is it?”
“I can’t… accept this as real. This isn’t supposed to happen when you’re a princess.” Twilight wiped a hoof across her face, her tears mixing with that water soaking her hooves at the river’s edge. “It would be better if I died in an accident or something. At least then, I know there’s nothing to go back to. But I still have a body out there, without me in it. Who knows what will happen to it?”
“That is—”
“Don’t tell me it’s not my concern, because it is!” Twilight snapped. Charon stood up, only one hand gripping his oar now. The lantern continued to swing in place. “You’re damn wrong if you think what happens to my body is none of my concern! It’s part of me, even if I’m apparently just a spirit now. And I want it back!”
Charon remained silent, his only movement the sway of the boat against the waves of the river. The Styx was silent in its path. Not a sound could be heard except the faint creak of the lantern swinging in place at the top of Charon’s oar.
“Twilight, I do not know what will happen to your body without its soul. Maybe it really will become an empty shell as you say. Maybe it will live on as it normally does with no change whatsoever. Or any inclination of good, evil, conscience, and intelligent thought could leave it. But as for right now, you are dead. If not for that immortality spell that turned you into an alicorn, your body would have probably have given out to old age, disease, or even an accident. It does not matter to me. You only have one foot remaining in the world of the living.” Charon reached out a withered hand to Twilight. “Once you join me, and take that final step, you’ll finally be able to be at peace.”
“But what about if I don’t want peace?” Twilight asked, reaching out a hoof to the ferryman reluctantly.
“You will find it,” Charon said, his palm wrapping around Twilight’s hoof. “The dead always do.”
The lavender alicorn awoke with a start in its bed, the sheets covered in sweat. It cradled its head in its hooves as its breathing slowly turned back to normal.
Finally, the alicorn flopped back. It felt like it had just trotted for miles without rest, but it was alive. Alive and well.
“Whoo… just a dream. Or more like a nightmare,” the alicorn sighed. “I really should stop those late night studying sessions. They’re beginning to mess with my head.”
The alicorn relaxed in its bed, its mind slowly drifting off into dreamland.
It didn’t even hear the coin clink into Charon’s bag.
Twilight was finally at peace.
