Daydream

A loud, terrifying scream echoed through the polished white tiles of the nursery ward, it came from a gurney at the very corner of the room, isolated from all the patients, ponies, humans, and everything else you could find in the realm of the damned.

The purgatory was anything but an empty space.

A white unicorn nurse, covered in silky sheets, serenely made her way through the corridors, checking each one of her specially chosen patients.

There was a fantastic story behind each one of them, but unfortunately, very few were willing to listen those tales of apparent non-sense, a hidden beauty. But through nurse's Soul heart, she felt not only the stories, but the belief behind each one of them.

Some were carried on for ages, others for a few weeks, each patient had their time, and their personal world. If at least one of them managed to reach the nursery, there were considerable chances to achieve cure. Still, it was often recalled that cure was a choice, and many of the lost minds around these places, opted for not facing reality.

It is a soul's right.

It's not easy at all to fight to forget, it's a battle with oneself, with one's world.

"Hello Lyra." Said the silk covered nurse. "How you've been doing?"

A pale unicorn was curled over a bed, vanished portraits scattered around her silhouette. Empty frames. Lyra took each one of them, inspecting the blurred pictures, trying to find a person.

"Who should be this this one?" The nurse asked, caressing her head with a hoof.

"I don't know. I know nothing at all." She stated. "But I feel the lack of... her. Why do I feel this way, Soul?" She asked. Ignoring the circumstances surrounding her arrival.

"She's something you decided to forget." The nurse tenderly replied.

"I see her name on the walls. I feel those Amber eyes staring at me in the dark, but I know nothing about her." Lyra looked spectral, as if only half of her body was present, the other one somewhere else.

Everyone looked the same around here, because this was a place of recycling. Not waste, but souls - and what remained of them.

"Lyra, Lyra..." The nurse muttered, removing a translucent veil from her face, and revealing a pair of soothing blue eyes. Blue eyes that healed.

"You went so far for love. Few ponies have destroyed so many dangerous barriers. You lost parts of you spirit to keep others intact. It's a miracle your conscience is alive."

Light filled the walls and ceiling of the nursery, a soft light. The windows here would lead nowhere, but light still escaped through the gaps.

"Is this the end?" Lyra asked.

"No darling... That's just the begging." The nurse said. "Still, we are only allowed to help those who are willing to be helped."

An odd silence filled the ethereal chamber, daydreams collapsed against nightmares, and her mind in war ceased fire. It was a matter of choice, to be or not to be Amber Gray.

"What do I do?" Lyra asked.

"Let her go, Lyra. Let Amber go." The nurse approached her, a cold touch penetrating her horn. "Try again."

Dazzled, in a dusty basement, a thin layer of dust floated in the air after each hoofstep. Showcase walls depicted frames of her so called life frozen in time. The question was: Which one of them were real?

Lyra stumbled, her hooves finding no safe place to land. The ground was covered in old newspapers. Amber was in each one of them, like postcard collection.

Her back shivered, as she realized she was at the present moment, crossing the depths of the mental basement, where all her failed attempts were disposed to die.

"I thought I'd see you here, Lyra." A sultry voice echoed from a distant corner. Backstage lights surrounded a decaying figure, bullet holes on her trench-coat, an open suitcase laying aside, a rusted handgun resting inside. "Is this the Amber you wanted to believe, Lyra?"

"I don't- I never meant to-"

"You believed in me!" She shouted, hissing like a fiend. "You created me. I was yours. And then you betrayed me!" Her face morphed, eyes burned, a pair of horns blinked into existence for a second, and then back into oblivion. "You invited me."

"I did not!" Lyra cried. Trying her best not to step down. "You were never supposed to exist, you do not belong to this dimension."

Amber chuckled, her fiery eyes reflecting the scattered light like a black cat in a roof.

"Do you really believe you are the real one?" Amber asked. Throwing a box of photographs on the floor. There were ponies there, many of them, ponies Lyra had never seen. "How could I know about them? Being only a part of you?"

"No..."

"You are a simulation, Lyra Heartstrings. We all are." She somberly said. "It's all but a matter of choosing your side."

"I am tired of choosing." Lyra looked to the ground, covered in dust and pictures. "You do not belong to me, I command you to leave my mind!"

Amber just chuckled. "Do you think, pony, you can forget me like a bad dream?"

"I never said I was planning to forget." From a box, Lyra dragged a heavy gallon of gasoline. Quickly she had learned that inside her mind, she was the god she wanted to be. "Ever heard the expression, better to burn, than fade away?"

"You wouldn't dare..."

"Farewell, Amber."

The explosion that consumed the insides of her mind was so strong, that a burning fever took over her body. In a quiet room, in a quiet neighborhood of Ponyville, a unicorn burned with fever. Bon Bon hurried up, running up and down the stairs, bringing wet towels and buckets of fresh water, in an attempt to lower the fever of her friend and roommate.

What burned her insides, was finally burning her outsides.