Equestria. The land you love.
Where ponies go about their daily lives doing the things they are destined to based on a tattoo they have on their flank known as cutie marks.
Your’s is a generic test tube with pink liquid in it, meaning you might be doing things like brewing or alchemy or potion-making, and in fact you do. You are an assistant at a brewery in Ponyville. You help the townsfolk here with their sickness and well-being. A pretty important job I’d say.
You don’t seem to remember how you got here though. Only that, once you came to Ponyville 3 years ago, the owners of the brewery, couple Cathode Halogen and Valence Electron came and saw the test tube on your flank and decided to kindly hire you to their brewery.
The couple have been wonderful role models ever since you started working here. You remembered when you first came in, they taught you how to brew a simple love potion and you seemed to pick up the skill pretty quickly. Pretty soon, you were learning the various proportions of ingredients needed to make many of the potions in the potion recipe books by yourself. Even when you made a mistake in the recipe, the owners would at most give a small lecture and would always forgive you. Your co-workers seemed to be getting slightly jealous of your abilities and earning greater respect from the owners. But you don’t seem to mind them.
The owners also have a good relationship with a zebra named Zecora, where she runs her own brewery at her home in the exotic Everfree Forest. Whenever she came into town, the three would chat and share new brewing techniques, recipes and ingredients with one another.
You remembered some of the highlights of your time working at the brewery. One time, a young filly named Apple Bloom intruded into the kitchen while you were working and said she was interested in brewing some potions of her own too. Cathode and Valance, though delighted to hear this from the young filly, said to come back in a few more years when she becomes a grown mare.
Another time, when almost all the ponies in Ponyville had food poisoning after they were served “baked bads”. The brewery was just absolute chaos as everypony was trying to gather all the ingredients needed to make a huge vat of the potion needed to cure those who ate the “baked bads”.
It has been a really fruitful experience working here and living in Ponyville, with the many wonderful friends you have made. You wished you’d never part with it.
~~~
It was another day at the brewery. A green unicorn appeared at the counter and appears to have contracted a unique form of hay fever that caused his horn to redden and swell, according to Cathode. Cathode instructed you and Valence to find the recipe book for the various cures for hay fever.
Valence skimmed through the book titles in the library: Horsentary… Hooferia… Hay Fever!
Soon, she was flipping through the pages and eventually found the right cure and wrote down the ingredients before passing on to you. She trusts you into making the new potion to cure the sick unicorn. You felt a huge surge of responsibility rush up your spine and so promised to do your best.
However, while you were working on the new potion, you noticed something, odd. After mixing the two of the liquids shown in the recipe book, the liquid instantly turns into a colour unlike anything you have ever seen. It is a black so black that you can’t see through it, it’s like as if you are staring into nothing, a void. Pitch black. Interesting.
You would think this was just the result of new ingredients being mixed together. That is, until you looked at the corner of your eye. On the table nearby, all of the other potions’ contents, have turned into the similar void of colour. Even the potions that your co-workers were holding.
What is happening?
You alerted your co-workers about the strange sighting of the potions they were holding.
No response.
You tried again. Again, nothing.
You went over to one of them and gave him a tap on the shoulder. You wanted to get his attention to this sudden mystery, but what you got was just incomprehensible...
Your hoof phased through their bodies.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
A buzzing sound was heard as the ponies seemed to flicker, then disappear into thin air.
Feeling unsettled, you ran to find the owners at the counter but soon, even the walls of the brewery are flickering out.
Buzzing sounds are heard in all directions.
In the tiny interval of the flickering brewery walls being transparent, you can see that even buildings in the distance are also behaving the same.
It was then you realised, that the world may not end with a bang liked what you have heard. But with a whimper.
The sky. The floor. Blinking into a void of nothing.
This couldn’t be. The world was falling apart.
Soon, the pitch black from the original potion, is now everywhere.
Everywhere you looked, there is nothing.
It was as if, the world turned off.
~~~
“...turn it off. TURN IT OFF!”
“The experiment has been terminated, sir.”
“I’m retrieving his vitals… this error in the simulation could prove fatal for him.”
“He’s alive. But he needs rest.”
“Experiment time: 42 minutes 14 seconds.”
“We regret to inform you... but your son’s therapy could not be complete.”
“From the experiment logs, it shows the simulation has gathered information from his imagination and has created a world for him to develop his social skills.”
“However... an error in the simulation has caused a major malfunction in the simulation. He will remain under our care until he wakes up.”
“We will arrange a regular therapy for your son in the meantime.”
“We thank you for believing in us and our vision in providing the best for our children.”
