The Descent

She opened her eyes slowly. It took a few moments for her blurry vision to recover. She sat up, looking around the room. There was no one else there. Where was she...? It took her a while to realize that she had made it to her bed, in the pilothouse. She had no idea how she'd gotten here. The room looked... Off. The walls were grey and pale, and so was the pure white light coming in through the window. Even she looked dull.

After some time of confusedly looking around, she started to remember what'd happened. The cannon had exploded and knocked her unconscious. Had someone carried her here? As she sat up to get out of the bed, she noticed something. She was fine. She didn't feel any pain, and neither was she particularly wounded. She stood up, looking down at the dusty floor below. She figured if someone would know what had happened, it'd be a crew member, right? But, the ship was deathly silent. Eventually, she made her way to the door, in search of someone to ask.

She pushed the door open. Around the greyed ship was no water. At least, she couldn't see it. It was covered in a thick layer of cloudy mist. The sky was pitch white, like she was floating around on an empty canvas. As she started to make her way around the ship, she noticed how deathly silent it was. No hoofsteps, no one talking, no nothing. Just emptyness. As she paced about on the boat, her heart beat faster and faster for every empty room she passed. The crew couldn't just have disappeared... They hadn't died, right?

That's when the thought struck her. Maybe... Just maybe, she did not make it. Was this what death felt like? Desolate, in a white void of nothingness? Unsure of what to do, she moved over to the place where she lost her life. The cannon room. However, there were no cannons - Just small, empty windows peering out over the clouds below. Was this it? Was this where she'd spend the rest of eternity? There's so much she'd wanted to do. To celebrate her graduation with her family. With Bridges. To move out, find love, have a family... Was it all gone because of this stupid trip? It was all too much to take in. She thought about just going back to bed.

As she was making her way back up the stairs, she noticed something. There was someone else, near the bow. They were standing on their hind legs, leaning on the handrail. Thoughts raced through Ametrine's head. Was it someone else's who'd died? Could it be that it was Luna, and this was all just a bad dream? It didn't look like her. Their mane was short and swirly, and their coat was just as pale and grey as the rest of the world, unlike Luna's starry and dark look. As she approached the pony at the bow, the unknown pony suddenly looked straight at Ametrine. First then did Ametrine notice that the pony had three adjacent faces with four, pure white and empty eyes.

"It's not your time yet."

Soon after their words, Ametrine started to see her vision fading to white, before everything eventually went dark.