My power has evolved since I left the Entity’s realm. The Old Stain designed me with the ability to reach into the minds of my prey and pull them into a delirium of half-slumber, but after my escape, I started to experiment.

I learned to passively draw people into the dream in a large area. It’s slow but relatively easy. It's how I knocked out half the Canterlot PD at the crime scene earlier this evening.

There was a small cost to that little modification, though.

Now I can only force people into the Dream quickly in two ways, the first is if I’m touching them.

The second is if they’re already exhausted.

Applejack’s psyche is a slurry. I have no idea how she was even upright and cogent during our conversation with how tired she is. Even with how little I like her, I can’t help but cringe at the mess her mind is.

She wants to sleep. I can feel that much. Unfortunately, there’s a mental wall between her and real rest. It’s hard and ugly, and as I run my metaphorical fingers across it I wince at the sharp barbs of trauma and guilt that are woven through it.

Stress, pain, self-hatred, and all manner of other negative emotions are gnawing at her. She’s scared and depressed, and I can feel the phantom aches and pains that have settled into her joints from her lack of sleep.

She’s destroying herself. Slowly but surely, she’s coming apart. Her gut is aching with acid reflux, and I can feel the telltale remains of alcohol in her system. It’s not recent, but I’d be willing to bet she nips from a bottle while Twilight isn’t looking.

“Damn it, Jackie.” I settle my will against the wall of stress in her mind.

Trauma or no, nothing mortal can resist a Killer’s power. My power is born of a biomystical Demon-God and it's designed to prey on mortals. With a surge of effort the wall cracks, then falls, and Applejack goes slack as I plunge her into an exhausted sleep.

“Alright, let’s see what we’re working with.”

I lace my fingers, crack my knuckles, and set the computer to record the incoming data before leaning back in my chair, closing my eyes and steadying my breathing.

It takes effort to control my powers outside of my dreaming state where I can wander the Dreamtime of Canterlot in my real skin.

‘real’

This is something I would never admit to Sour Sweet or Aria or Starlight, and certainly not to Tempest, as much as I care about her. I haven’t even admitted how I feel about it to Adagio and Sonata, but the truth is that, when I’m not dreaming, I feel… wrong.

My skin itches, as if it isn’t quite the right texture, and I’m always too cold. My fingers are constantly twitching unless I’m actively trying to stay still, and I have to quell a minor freakout every time I run my tongue over my teeth because for a moment I’m absolutely convinced they’re the wrong shape.

I want to hear the rasp of metal-on-metal when I twitch my fingers. I miss being fever-hot all the time, and the way my sharp, angular teeth fit together when I close my mouth. I hate how pale and soft my skin is, when it ought to be dark red and rubbery, like hide, but I can’t say any of that to anyone.

Tempest would never forgive me, while Star and Sour probably wouldn’t even be able to look at me. All three of them still have nightmares about dying over and over and over again on the Entity’s hooks, and the unspeakable feeling of being pulled apart and then put back together whenever we were drawn into the darkness.

“Enough, Shimmer, focus.” I grimace as I try to rally and reign in my intrusive thoughts. It does not do to dwell.

I focus on Applejack.

Her mind is near and even worn out it’s still strong. I can feel her exhausted psyche sinking quickly into a deep, restful state, though. She should hit REM in about half an hour, but I can still do a few preliminary checks on her before that.

With a silent effort of will, I start to count. I count out the enumeration of dusk, an old Imperial dreamers' trick. It brings my mind closer and closer to a state of lucid dreaming.

For most, all that means is that they can control their dream. Those people aren't dream demons.

If anyone in the area had the ability to peer into the spaces between the Wall of Sleep where I spend most of my free time, they would have seen a horrifying sight as I reached the final enumeration twenty minutes later.

They would have seen my body split open bloodlessly, my ribcage peeling apart and my organs shifting, as a pair of hands with fingers like silver blades emerged, followed by black jacket-clad arms, then my head of lank, red-gold hair, and then finally the rest of me as I tear free of my false body.

My disguise.

I shed the bloody shell of Sunset Shimmer, and am once more who I’m supposed to be.

The Nightmare.

My fingers twitch, and a rush of relief spreads through me as the long blades of my fingers rasp and click against one another. For a moment I’m overwhelmed by euphoria as I take a deep breath and my lungs fill with the scent of fresh meat.

Fresh hope.

It takes a monumental act of will to tamp that down.

“You’re better than this, Shimmer,” I mutter.

I glance back at my slumbering form, the rent in my body already having closed and left behind no sign that it was ever there. That body is the mask I wear for the world in more ways than one.

In a way, I’m grateful to the Old Stain for changing me the way he did. Whether or not he realises it, he’s the one who gave me the power to fight back, to take back my life from the people who had stolen it.

I stare down at my bladed hands, indulging myself for a moment as I admire the sharp edges and the rasp-and-click as I twitch my fingers. What can I say? Killers are like murderous cats, we like shiny sharp things, and I have the Entity to thank for it.

The Entity is the only reason I’m even alive. He saved me, forged me, destroyed me, then remade me into something stronger.

Something better.

Even if he had to break me to do it, the Entity is the one who taught me to harness my power. To harness my rage. The Entity taught me to see a new world, and then showed me how to reach it.

If Celestia was the closest thing to a mother that Little Orphan Sunset ever had then, in a twisted way, the Entity is the only father I've ever known.

I feel a little guilty that I turned out to be such a treacherous daughter.

None of that means I want to come back into the fold. I’m grateful, not stupid. I don’t want to be a mindless, slavering Killer hunting numpty nobodies through a Fog-ridden wasteland for the rest of eternity like Trapper. I mean, sure, it’s fulfilling work, has decent hours with plenty of off-time. You get to see new places, kill new people, and it’s got great job security, but I’d rather keep my sapience intact, thank-you-very-much.

But I can still send whoever stole his power screaming into his maw.

That solves my problem and, at least in my eyes, makes the Entity and me square, which kills two birds with one bloody carving knife.

Of course, that all assumes we even find the Thief, and until then I’ve got a job to do here, even if I don’t necessarily think one of my former friends deserves the special treatment.

I phase through the observation wall and into the room where Applejack is sleeping. Her brow is already furrowed with strain, and I frown at that. She shouldn’t even be dreaming yet, much less be in the throes of a nightmare.

Sure enough though, the EEG and other sensors are reading a high spike in stress levels. If this is the quality of sleep she’s been getting lately then it’s no wonder she looks like hot garbage.

“Fine,” I say curtly.

I extend a single, bladed finger over Applejack’s head, set the tip right between her eyes, and plunge my blade into her skull. My mind descends along my blade into Applejack’s dreaming psyche with a vertiginous drop. It’s a familiar sensation, one that goes deeper than a simple scan of surface memories. I’m falling all the way into the deepest parts of her subconscious where her brightest dreams and darkest nightmares dwell, although I’m guessing I’ll be finding more of the latter than the former once I get there.

The moment my boots hit the ground, I know I’m right.

“Really?” I raise an eyebrow and sigh. I could have lived the whole rest of my life not coming back to this shit hole.

Canterlot High.

The school looms tall in the darkness. It’s night, or something like it. It’s kind of hard to tell in nightmares because the light level is low either way. The school looks pretty bad, too. The windows are all shattered or boarded up, the front door is hanging off of its hinges, and even the masonry is starting to come apart.

And sitting at the fronts steps of the school is my one-time friend, Applejack, looking younger but still just as worn, cradling my dead body in her arms.

“Oh…” the word leaves my lips, and I’m genuinely wrong-footed for a moment. “This is what’s been keeping you awake at night?”

Guilt is a powerful thing. I know that better than most.

I approach slowly, walking down the cobbled path towards the stone steps of the school’s entrance where Applejack is rocking back and forth, curled protectively around my body as she sobs softly.

Even knowing she can’t see me or perceive me in any meaningful way, I still try and keep my footsteps quiet as I reach her side.

My body is a mess. All broken and bloody from the four-story fall. Applejack has my head pressed her chest, and all she’s doing is muttering apologies over and over. She’s begging for my forgiveness, even knowing I’m long gone and can never give it.

“It didn’t have to end like that, Jackie,” I say quietly. “All I wanted was for someone… anyone… to take my side. Or not even take my side, but to at least give me a fair shake.” I crouch down and reach out, brushing a few locks of drab blond strands from her face as Applejack weeps over dream-me’s corpse. “I was homeless, destitute, and totally alone, Jackie… this was always where I was going to end up.”

“Ah’m s-sorry,” Applejack sobs as she hugs my body. “Ah didn’t know… ah never meant’ta… Ah’m just so damn sorry, Sunset.”

“Yeah,” I say, even though she’s deaf to me. “Me too.”

The moment is shattered by the deafening report of a gunshot, and my jaw drops as Applejack is sent sprawling back towards the broken doors of the school with a bloody hole in her shoulder and leaving my dream-corpse to drop bonelessly to the concrete.

I whip around with blades splayed and fury filling my gut as the sound of a bolt-action rifle chambering another round rends through the air like thunder.

For a moment I think it must be one of the Entity’s Killers, one of my erstwhile siblings come to reave a broken soul of their hope, but that’s impossible. It’s just a dream… a very bad dream.

The woman approaching the school entrance looks awfully familiar. She’s wearing a red and white checkered button-down, jeans not unlike Applejack’s that are belted with a sturdy leather strap, and her hair is a barely-tamed mess of orange curls kept in check by a simple hair-tie.

Her eyes are what really do it, though.

They’re brilliant stars of turquoise and they’re absolutely filled with contempt.

“Jacqueline Apple,” the woman’s voice is a viperous hiss. “How dare you…”

“Ah’m sorry!” Applejack sobs as she kicks and crawls away on her back, trying to put distance between herself and the woman.

“How dare you call yourself an Apple!” The woman takes aim again and pulls the trigger with merciless accuracy as Applejack tries to rise.

The shot takes Applejack in the gut, dropping her to the ground curled around her perforated stomach as she shakes and cries piteously. My stomach twists at the sight… who the hell is this woman? What kind of person could possibly reduce Applejack, one of the strongest young women I’ve ever met, to a gibbering ball of tears?

“How dare,” the woman continues, “you call yourself mah daughter!”

Oh.

Now I remember where I’ve seen her face. I didn’t recognise it because, in the lone picture I’ve seen of her, she was smiling, and I thought at the time that it was a face that wasn’t really made for anger. Seeing the face of Pear Butter, Applejack’s dead mother, twisted in rage and fury, is almost obscene.

“Please, momma, please!” Applejack sobs and shakes as she stares up at the woman I know for a fact that she idolizes. “Ah didn’t mean to! Ah swear it, momma!”

The shade of Pear Butter ratchets the bolt back and chambers another round as she moves closer to her daughter, stepping over my body to do so, and settles her aim down the sights of the rifle right between Applejack’s eyes at point-blank range.

“Don’t you call me that,” Pear Butter hisses. “You’re no daughter’a mine.”

“And that’s enough of that,” I say.

I sink my blades into the fabric of Applejack’s dreamscape, tighten my grip on the dream, wave my hand, and tear the nightmare to threads, dissolving it like Fog.

Pear Butter ripples and fades away, and Applejack stares dumbfounded for a few seconds before she jerks back and starts patting herself down.

Her hands go quickly over her stomach and shoulder, but the wounds have vanished along with the nightmare versions of me and her mother.

I sigh and turn my back on her, content that I had bought her at least one night of decent slee—

“S-Sunset?”

I freeze.

She shouldn’t be able to see me. Nothing about her mind should be capable of perceiving me. I’m masked by my own Fogborn powers. Her mind is basically my bitch if I want it to be.

“Sunset? Is… Is that you?” Her voice is tremulous and strained, but I hear her rise nonetheless. “P-Please… will ya… will ya just turn around?”

Part of me knows I shouldn’t. I should just wipe her mind of this and walk out of her dream, but the rest of me refuses.

Slowly, I turn to face her, and what little color is left in her face vanishes as she takes in my features.

I know what she’s seeing. She’s seeing a demon that looks like the girl she helped kill. She's seeing red skin shot through with veins of icy blue. Long, lank, red and gold locks that are stained and matted with sweat and blood hanging over eyes like shards of icy hate, and a mouthful of fangs.

What I see is maybe more surprising. There’s Applejack, yes, but there’s something between us and not in the metaphorical sense. A frayed, barely-there strand of topaz light. Given that Applejack isn’t looking at, or questioning, it, I assume she can’t see it… but I can wager a guess as to its nature.

Harmony.

The last ragged strands of our old bond, and the magic that used to flow between us. I suppose that’s how Applejack is able to see me. Cute, but in the end it’s nothing more than an odd little trick of fate due to some magical leftovers.

Ignoring the strand, I adjust my long, ragged black jacket as I face her down. My fingers are twitching spasmodically, filling the air between us with raspy clicks.

“Are… are ya real?” Applejack asked weakly.

It takes a lot of effort to keep my expression neutral. To keep all of the vitriol and anger from just spilling out over her like vomit. There’s no point, though… she’s already torturing herself every night, and honestly it's exhausting to even think about.

“I’m just a nightmare, Jackie,” I say. “I’m whatever was left over after you five were done with me… that’s all.”

A stricken look crosses her face, one that’s just pain. There’s no fear, no sorrow or grief. Just pain.

“Ah’m sorry, Sunset,” Applejack sobs. “Please, just… I just want’ta take it all back, and if Ah could Ah would, I’d give anythin’ to take it all back.”

I close the distance between us slowly, and to Applejack’s credit she doesn’t pull away. Despite my looking like something that crawled out of Hell, which is a more accurate summation that most would guess, Applejack stands her ground until I’m less than an arms-length away.

“I’m dead, Applejack,” I say finally, and her face falls. “You can apologise to a gravestone all you want, but it can’t forgive you.”

“But… but you’re here!” Applejack steps forward and reaches out to grab me, but I let her hands pass through me. She staggers, staring at her empty hands for a long moment before looking back at me. “You’re… you’re right here.”

I shake my head. “I told you, Jackie… I’m just a nightmare, and that’s all that will ever be left of me.”

Her arms fall back to her sides, and the silence of the dark dreamscape fills in the space around us like a thick sheet of cotton. It’s covering our mouths and eyes and ears, choking us both with the grudge that lay between us.

“Do ya hate me?” Applejack asks in a small voice.

My fingers twitch and rasp against each other at her words. Do I hate her? Do I hate her for abandoning me when I needed her most, like the other girls who were supposed to be my friends? Do I hate her for looking the other way while the rest of the school abused and beat me over and over again?

Do I hate her?

“Yes,” I say finally, and her face pales while her pupils shrink to pinpricks at my words. “But it doesn’t matter… I’m a nightmare, Jackie, you won’t remember any of this come morning.”

That’s right.

Nightmares can’t exist in the light. Come morning, this will be gone. Just another patch of Fog chased away by the relentless advance of the day.

Applejack looks like she’s about to say something, but before another word can leave her mouth I stab a single finger right through the middle of her dream-self’s forehead, and she freezes. I make a few adjustments, wiping away the image of me, the conversation we had, and everything to do with my Killer shape.

She resists. It’s harder than it should be. Harder than any mortal mind should be for me to adjust. Maybe it’s because she used to wield magic. Hell, maybe she’s just that stubborn, but in the end I wipe it all away. She’ll remember fragments, maybe, but nothing defined.

Dreams are like that, you know.

And then she’ll sleep, dreamless and deep.

“I’m just a nightmare, Jackie,” I whisper, even knowing she can’t hear me anymore. “You have to let me go… I’m dead, and I’ll always be dead, and you’ll always be one of the people who helped kill me, make peace with that.”

With an effort of will, I pull my blade from her and Applejack’s form dissolves as her dreamscape collapses around me, and I rise from the depths of her subconscious to return to the world of light where I no longer belong.

Author's Note

Failure tests the mettle of heart, brain, and body.

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