Twilight glared at the horizon ahead. It was the same in every direction, and had been for nearly as long as she could remember. Somewhere, at the very back of her mind, Twilight was aware that memories existed of a world green and lush, full of life. The colors were faint, but Twilight couldn’t bring herself to recall the smells or sounds at all. She breathed in deeply through her nose, hoping the act would assist in triggering a memory.
Instead, all she got was a noseful of sand. Twilight snorted, blowing the intrusion out. The grains fell back among their brethren. The sand was everywhere. It was the ground, it was the sky, it drifted on the wind everywhere in between. Infinite, abrasive, and deeply irritating, the sand was now the world as far as Twilight could see. She had tried to fly above the clouds of swirling grit, but had failed. Now she simply trudged on aching hooves, as flying included velocities at which the sand choked her and gouged her eyes.
The red sand. The unending expanse of nothing. The perpetual desert. The remnants of a world ended.
Twilight felt a single tear swell in her eye. She felt it begin to move down her cheek, but the swirling sand clung to it, leeching the moisture until a small blob of mud was all the fell to the ground, a slightly darker red speck on an abyss of red. The world was red.
Twilight felt more tears seep forth, but closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see the tears stillborn, life drained before they left her face. The sand stuck to her wet face, matting her coat. Twilight shook her head viciously, attempting to dislodge some of the muck from her face, but it was to little avail. What little sand departed, more soon replaced. Twilight would have called upon her magic to clean and shield herself from further crud, were it not out of her reach. More tears, more specks of red mud. The world was red.
The last reserves of her power were now depleted. Twilight sobbed quietly, alone in the wasteland. She weeped for all that was lost, and what was soon to be lost.
The problem with being the last of anything is that, given time, there will be none left at all.
The old adage slithered through Twilight’s mind. She didn’t want to think, but she did anyways. She didn’t want to open her eyes, either, but some part of her mind asked her to. Maybe there would be something to see.
There wasn’t.
The world was red.
Blood red sand.
Twilight walked. She put one hoof in front of the other. Although she moved with every step, there was no way to tell. Every mile looked exactly like the last. The same thing in every direction. There were no dunes and no dips. The terrain was flat. The land was sand. The world was red.
She fell. Twilight was so tired, she tripped over her own hooves. She collapsed into the sand. She made no effort to rise. Why should she? There was nowhere to go, nothing to see, no reason to do anything. She was tired, so tired.
A brief memory swam through Twilight’s fading mind.
Tell me, Twilight. What will you do? Will you end the world, or will I? Choose a fate. Will you be the one that killed them all, or the one that stood by and watched? It doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t. Who will be around to remember? Only one of us. Only one will survive to remember. The question is, could you live with the regret? Would you? Would you doom yourself to years of endless nothing, just so you could have some insubstantial moral victory? Just die. It’ll be easier on you. See? I’m not completely evil. I’m offering you some small mercy.
So much regret, so much hate, so much sadness. The darkness crawled through Twilight’s mind, and pain racked her body. She couldn't decide which was worse: the sand, or the knowledge that everything was about to end. In truth, it was already over. Her death was a mere formality at this point.
She curled up into a ball, sand blowing over her with impeccable apathy. She wanted it to end. Thoughts of suicide crossed her mind, but she lacked to magic to do even that. Everything she had was gone. She had used every bit of energy at her disposal to win an insubstantial moral victory. The fact that it was a futile gesture was not lost to Twilight. She had won, and lost. She had lost everything.
More tears tried to fall, but they too died almost as soon as they began. Twilight thought that maybe she would die of dehydration soon. She hadn’t even thought of water in what seemed like forever. Twilight closed her eyes and tried to imagine water.
Blue?
An impossible concept. Twilight gave up, and opened her eyes. Red sand swirled around her. It was endless. She tried to stand, but her legs refused to obey. She rose halfway, then fell back down. Twilight tucked her head to her chest and wrapped her wings around her head. There, a few tears were able to make it part way down her face before getting saturated by red. Her eyes closed.
Black.
Twilight woke. She found herself standing in a featureless expanse of white. There was a promise of serenity, of quiet and comfort. She stood in place and turned, looking for anything. She forgot the frantic and hopeless gaze from before. Here, it was okay if she found nothing. She could wait. It was nice here.
At first, there was nothing else. But the more she looked, the more she saw. Over that way, that looks like something. What is that? It’s a shape. An outline of slightly different shades of white. A shadow?
A shadow of a pony.
The shadow moved. Walking closer. White fog gave way to color.
Only one other color.
Royal purple.
Royal purple around white.
No.
Twilight’s body shook, and she opened her eyes.
The world is red.
Red.
