Not The First

Day 1 with my new roommate. Day 70 exactly since I arrived.

Since Sparkle arrived on day 69, we estimated it had been 23 days in the outside world since she teleported. A distortion factor of three in the temporal field seemed appropriate.

For every minute Sparkle had been alive, I suffered triply as much.

I tried not to be too upset about that. Technically it was my own fault for teleporting. And she was now stuck here, too.

But that just made a new problem.

"How long can we live here?" she asked me.

I looked up from my scribblings in the journal I'd been keeping. "Hmm?"

Sparkle waved a hoof at the bodies and pool. "There are limited resources. How long can we live?"

"Um." I hadn't given it much thought. I'd been on my own. When I died, I died. I only intended to stay alive as long as possible. "We should probably figure out."

Five hours and a number of very rough estimates later, we'd calculated my average consumption rate. If I kept at it, I could survive on my own for approximately fifteen more months.

But I wasn't on my own.

Seven and a half months.

We were both a little put off by that number. It seemed so short.

"Well..." I said hesitantly, "I suppose we could eat less. I've been trying to stay full, but I could survive on less. It wouldn't be comfortable..."

She shook her head. "The real killer will be water. That pool will eventually run dry. Even in a closed system like this sphere, our wastes won't replenish it."

"Seven and one half months." I looked Sparkle in the eye. "That's how much time we have."

"To do what?"

"To... live."

Chills traveled down my spine as I thought about it. Once our water ran out, we would dry up like fallen leaves. I'd already suffered through not drinking once; I didn't relish the thought of dying that way. Sparkle shuddered, too. Instinctively I grabbed her in a hug. I still thought of myself as the Princess of Friendship.

"I don't want to die," she whispered.

"I don't, either." But as I looked around, it occurred to me that it was inevitable. We would both die. In less than 300 days.

Or... would we?

Perhaps only one of us would.

One dies. One lives longer.

Sparkle stiffened against me. I separated us so I could see her face- my face. On it was a familiar look. One of cold determination. We had the same thought.

The only question was who would act first.