Something, a noise like a faint rush of air, even though I know that it's impossible for wind to blow here, rouses me from my brief nap. I've taken to calling this mysterious place the Memory Room, but its true purpose? I couldn't even begin to hazard a guess. Princess Celestia brought me here – or at least the Elements of Harmony did – shortly after I'd completed Starswirl the Bearded's unfinished spell and restored my friends' cutie marks (to say nothing of their destinies) to normal. She spoke to me briefly about how I'd come a long way from the introverted filly who left Canterlot in a huff to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. “Now,” she said, “you are ready to fulfil your destiny.”
But then, nothing happened. I got to see some clips of the major milestones in my life – hence why I coined the name – culminating in the Elements activating in the library, I got zapped by a blinding bolt of energy for the second time that day, and then, when the smoke had cleared, I found myself all alone. Celestia was gone and she hasn't returned since. I've been stuck in here for so long now that I've lost all track of time. Assuming time even works here.
I shouted myself hoarse those first couple of hours, hoping that, somehow, Celestia would hear me. That she would come back for me. That this was all some elaborate practical joke orchestrated by Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. I continued to believe that it was a prank until hours of crying revealed no apologetic pranksters.
Occasionally, the Memory Room will hum into life and show me the edited highlights of The Life and Times of Twilight Sparkle: Unicorn, Mage, Element of Magic, Apprentice to Princess Celestia, and Occasional Defender of Equestria. I gotta tell you, there's nothing quite like seeing the intimate details of your childhood being relayed in front of your astonished eyes to give you a feeling of inadequacy. So many regrets, so many poor decisions.
If I ever get out of here, the first thing I'm gonna do is find Moon Dancer and apologise for missing her party!
What does it look like? Picture eternity. It's a bit like that.
As far as the eye can see, there are stars; yellow dwarves burning hotly in the prime of their lives, red giants on the brink of collapsing in on themselves and forming quantum singularities, and more nebulae, planets and asteroids than I ever would've been able to see with my telescope back … home.
Sigh. My friends will be worried about me. It makes it difficult to appreciate all this splendour when the last thing they saw was me being struck by the Elements of Harmony. After all this time gone, what are they going to think? Did they tell my relatives what had happened? Goddesses, did they have a funeral? Is there a gravestone with my name on it sitting atop an empty coffin?
Tartarus, I need to keep a better grip on my imagination.
In the darker moments, when loneliness stalks my mind like a timberwolf certain of easy prey, I confess that I've often wondered if this was not Princess Celestia's plan all along? If she wanted me out of Ponyville, out of Equestria – out of her life – there were so many easier solutions available to her than this, however. I can't countenance the idea that she'd have been a second mother to me for most of my life only to turn around and maroon me in this abyss. Still, the thought abides.
No. Clearly something went wrong with whatever spell she was planning to show me, and even at this moment, with the aid of the other princesses and my friends, she was working hard to bring me home. Sooner or later, they would show up; we'll laugh and cry, hug, and go to Sugarcube Corner where I'll find that Pinkie Pie has prepared an elaborate homecoming party with all of my favourite pastries.
With no atmosphere to form a protective bubble between me and the cosmos, everything looks close enough to touch, and yet … I'm acutely aware of the fact that something stands between me and what's out there.
I'm still breathing, for a start.
I can't teleport through the barrier. Whatever it's made of. My magic doesn't want to work in here, it seems.
Yet I can walk in any direction on a path that looks as though it has been carved out of starlight itself, glittering and shining brightly against the darkness below, without ever bumping into anything solid; and walk I have, without end, until my hooves are sore and my stomach begs for sustenance … even something cooked – though obliterated might be the better word – by Rainbow Dash would be gratefully accepted by my growling, aching belly right now.
I can't say what I'm thinking out loud. It'll make my fears seem all too real if I put my thoughts into words.
But.
I should be dead.
The average pony can go two days without water and a week without food; even if my sense of time isn't what it was, I know instinctively that more than a week has passed since I first arrived here. It could even be as much as a month!
I'm tempted.
But I can't.
It'll make it all too real.
The average pony can hold their breath for about two minutes before they pass out. If I stop breathing and nothing happens … then, what? What does it prove, exactly? I gnaw pensively on my bottom lip, knowing that I'll have to make the decision to try sooner or later.
Sooner. I need to know; no matter how much the answer may terrify me, I need clarity in the same way that a baby needs its mother's milk.
I take a deep breath, then push all of the air out of my body – the question of where the air is coming from in the first place has occurred to me, but I don't have an answer – and thus begins my waiting game. It takes about a minute for me to feel the pain forming twisting knots in my chest, a burning in my lungs, and I have to fight the urge to inhale.
Two minutes pass. I'm still conscious.
Three. No blurred vision.
Four. Brain still active, alert, and all too aware of how much this sucks.
Goddesses, the agony!
But I haven't passed out.
Interesting.
Unless I'm some kind of breath-holding prodigy, I should have suffered from generalised hypoxia long before now, but as far as I'm able to tell I'm perfectly fine.
Other than the gut-wrenching soreness I'm experiencing, that is.
I suck in great lungfuls of air, if only to appease my abused respiratory system's demands; my body still reacts as if it needs food, rest and oxygen, but it appears as though deprivation of them is not enough to kill me.
Maybe … no.
That's a step too far!
Maybe I am dead. Nopony really knows what happens to you after you die; maybe being hit by the Elements, maybe talking to Celestia, was a fantasy conjured up by my frazzled neurons misfiring their last – offering me a brief, comforting vision – before ultimately expiring. The last thing I was semi-consciously aware of before finding myself alone here was a bright light after all.
Is this the Afterlife, then? I've never really thought about it before – dying, I mean – but whatever I'd been expecting, it probably wasn't this. In school, they taught us that Heaven was a beautiful, serene garden, where we would see the loved ones who had already passed on again. Well, wherever I go, wherever I look, I don't see granny and grandpa anywhere.
Dispassionately, I consider the possibility that I'm in Hell; just as dead relatives are thin on the ground, so, too, are pitchfork-wielding demons. Of course, who is to say that the stories and legends of the Afterlife were going to bear any relation to the fact of such a place? Logically, anyone who witnessed either realm would not be able to report back their findings. I am, above all else, a scientist, and I will not dismiss any notion until I have more facts.
With no landmarks for context, it's impossible for me to say how long I've been walking for, but eventually the path of starlight came to a rather abrupt end. Below me lay a chasm of darkness that chilled me to my core; I don't know why I had this reaction to it, but the absence of stars and other cosmic detritus sent a shiver down my spine.
Okay, it's pretty obvious why it worried me, isn't it? It's about as big a metaphor for emptiness as one could never hope to see. Like a black hole, it was abundantly clear to me that nothing would ever escape once it was pulled beyond the event horizon.
Turning my attention back to the way ahead, I can just about make out something off in the distance: a shimmering, golden light that, even from here, dazzles and hurts the eyes. A portal, I guess. But is it the way out? The starlight path falls way short of it, however; if I could teleport, it'd be no problem, but I think I've finally been able to work out why I can't.
Unicorn magic is an amazing thing. It can be used to create, to destroy, and to protect. My magic has been slowly burning itself out in order to keep me alive, preventing me from using even the most basic of spells so that more power could be channelled toward this task; I should have died weeks ago of suffocation, malnutrition, or both, but my body's natural defence mechanisms went into overdrive to keep me going. My conscious mind is aware that it needs food, water and rest, however, thus I'm still cursed to suffer the accompanying pains of their absence.
So. I'm left with a choice to make.
Do I turn back and hope that my friends find me before my magic completely depletes itself?
Or do I jump?
“Is this a test, Celestia?” I ask, tears forming unbidden in my eyes. “A leap of faith?”
I look once more into the chasm. There is nothing to be seen in there; no clarity, no answers.
If this is supposed to be a test of my conviction, it's one of the most fiendish that I ever could've imagined; as a scientist and scholar, I don't like acting without the appropriate information. My mind cries out for the knowledge of what will happen should I attempt the jump. Will I make it safely to the other side? Will I find myself falling for eternity until the last of my magic is snuffed out?
Will I be by Celestia's side once more? I would give almost anything just to feel the warmth of her neck against mine one more time.
Something occurs to me; I crane my neck lower to get a better look at the starlight path, and a frown crosses my muzzle. The shape of each step is very familiar. A hoof-sized six-pointed star with five smaller stars circling around it. Why hadn't I seen this before?
Because I was too wrapped-up in my fear to notice.
The familiar hum of the Memory Room filled the air around me – wondering how sound conducted through an apparent vacuum was the least of my problems right now, I decided – and the screens began to show images from … no, these weren't memories of my past life. This was now.
Twilight Sparkle.
Standing at the edge of the starlight path, looking down into the chasm.
But.
Why was I so much further away from the portal than before?
Twilight Sparkle.
Standing at the edge of the starlight path, looking down into the chasm.
A little bit closer.
A little bit closer ...
A little bit …
A little …
A …
The horrible sense of it all began to unravel itself in my mind. If I'd had the energy to, I might've laughed.
This starlight path that, ostensibly, was guiding me toward a potential escape route … was me.
Every time I reached the end of the path, I would jump into the chasm, die, and the final dregs of magic from my body would be released. That it formed a new step in the path toward freedom was clearly the last act of my fading consciousness before oblivion claimed it. How long had this cycle been going on for? My magic, of its own accord, keeping me on the edge of life just long enough to add the next link in the chain so that successive iterations of Twilight Sparkle would be one step closer to home.
The Memory Room was more than just a warehouse for my memories. It contained a copy of my magical essence that it had taken from the Elements of Harmony when they brought me here. The blueprint of me, as it were, was woven into the fabric of this place. For as long as it existed, it would rebuild me – exactly as I was from the first moment that I entered – so that I could carry out this, my, our, endless task.
It was my Heaven.
It was my Hell.
Looking back over the path, yawning away into infinity behind me, I wondered numbly, coldly, how many Twilight Sparkles had lived and died to get this far.
Being detached about that was difficult.
How many more were to come before I, we, she'd, be free.
Because it wouldn't be me any more, would it?
I wasn't even me to begin with.
Tears fell as I jumped; not for me, but for us. For we still had to suffer an untold number of deaths before escape would be possible.
But it would be worth it to see our friends again. If they even still exist. If they haven't forgotten about me or – worse – replaced me with somepony else.
Wouldn't it?
