Funny, the things I used to believe I believed. Who would have thought that I, Princess Twilight “Egghead” Sparkle, would turn my back on science and a scientific understanding of existence? But if there is one thing, just one thing, to know for certain, it is that pain – no, horror – is the only madness that washes us clean in the end, the only madness uncontaminated by other kinds of madness. The notion of the reducibility of life to the physical is just one more madness in a ceaseless ocean of it, an ocean drowning us in our own nightmares and the dreams we employ as defence mechanisms against them. And by “horror”, political outrage or even introspection that occurs in the hours when light is a fantasy are not what I mean. True horror is neither reaction nor realisation. True horror is the all-encompassing obliteration, the numbness, of knowing in every conceivable manner that the world and everything in it is a mask without a face.
Nonetheless, I am ashamed. What I am about to do, I do not because I crave redemption, but because I cannot live with what I have done. I cannot live as I do now. My friends I love so much, and that would typically be sufficient insofar as dissuading me is concerned, but their eventual forgiveness of me – and they would forgive, I have little doubt – is not something I am even remotely comfortable with. Forgiving the unforgivable is… well, there is no word for what it is.
Having abandoned the assumption of physicalism, I have at last pinpointed the great enemy: consciousness. As I predicted, the state of consciousness is the product of evolution, but consciousness itself is not. It has taken me such a long time, but I have finally determined the precise component of the equine brain, which is not responsible for consciousness, but rather communicates with consciousness. There is a cloud or a perpetual explosion up there in space, a vast and milky thing we so desperately cling to with ironic automatism.
“I’m having doubts,” I say without looking at her – she-who-is-both-me-and-not-me.
“Good,” comes the rasping reply, “there’s an awful lot to doubt.”
“What if it… doesn’t work?” I murmur. “This is literally the only thing I – we – can think of that… does something about us.”
My double sighs, an intensely unpleasant noise. “Nothing works. Ever. You know this.”
“Yeah…”
The other Twilight sighs again, rises, and then limps her way over to where I am standing. “Look,” she says patiently, “this is a good idea. In fact, it’s more than that. As you already mentioned, it is the only idea we have, besides outright suicide. And death is… what?”
I remain silent for a while before responding. “Death is not a solution, merely an alternative.”
My doppelgänger nods. “Correct. An infinitely more attractive and desirable alternative, for sure, but not a solution, especially when taking into account our little predicament.”
“When do you want to do it?” I ask, having more or less composed myself.
“Why not tonight? Everything’s ready, after all.”
I was afraid she might say that. “B-but… isn’t there anything you want to do first?” I realise how ridiculous that sounds even before I have finished speaking. There is nothing she wants to do. I know this because there is nothing that I want to do either.
“I can see from your facial expression that you’ve just answered your own question,” the other Twilight smirks. “How much less fun is life once it becomes increasingly clear that the only things you can learn about it make you wish you hadn’t?”
“Wait,” I suddenly impart, “there is something.”
Not-me blinks uncomprehendingly. “You’ve… lost me. Consider me moderately surprised.”
It is at this stage that I promptly place my hoof right on top of my twin’s heart, causing her to release a sound that is a cross between a strangled gasp and the word “no.” The things that I did to her made her flesh scaly and her fur stiff, among other things, but I can still feel it: that indescribable and yet achingly familiar internal movement signifying… life.
“W-what are you… what are you doing?” the breathing corpse which is my counterpart in a mirror of violent death asks me. “What is this?”
“It’s strange to think of yourself as a living thing,” I sniffle. “After you, I… I just… It is so difficult to see myself as, I don’t know…” Leaving my hoof where it is, I impulsively push my face into the other Twilight’s lacerated throat and sob, tears and saliva softening up her coat a bit, although her muscles stay tense. Even when I was mutilating her, I never touched her, and doing so now gives new meaning to the word “self-discovery.” It feels like I missed my own funeral and dug up the body – my own body – to try again.
“Are you done?” my lookalike enquires uncomfortably. “I have mixed feelings about... about this.”
“Yeah,” I say, pulling away unsteadily. “Yes, I… sorry about that. And I’m ready. Remember: you need to get my face and my cutie mark. We can’t allow there to be any possibility of bias.”
Twilight nods. “This is seriously going to hurt, you know.”
“I know,” I respond. “But it can hardly be any worse than what I did to–”
I am interrupted by the sensation of my face being literally torn from my head. Collapsing in speechless agony, I observe through the pain oozing into my mind and the blood oozing into my eyes – these still lidded and ’lashed for obvious reasons – that my cutie mark has been affected correspondingly, albeit not so completely. Twilight casts a numbing spell, and then helps me to stand back up.
“Right,” she declares, exhaling hideously. “You look like the victim of something.”
Dazed, I am able to nod, but little else.
“Once I sever the connection,” Twilight continues, all business, “that’s it.”
“Their choice,” I whisper.
“Their choice,” she echoes.
