Laments of the Dimension-Stranded ⁽ᴿᵉᵐᵃᵏᵉ⁾

Vincent sat upright and tugged the chain that dangled from the lamp on the bedside table. The lightbulb switched on and illuminated the small, cozy bedroom. He hesitated momentarily, then breathed and inhaled the scent of lavender that emanated from the clean bedsheets. A breeze blew through the nearby open window and lacy curtains swung in the wind and kissed the floor.

He withdrew his legs from beneath the bedsheets and swung them aside as he assumed a seated position on the edge of the mattress. As his socked feet touched the floor, a loose wooden floorboard nearest to his pillow emitted a raucous squeak that disturbed the tranquil stillness.

“Come back to bed…” a feminine voice implored him sleepily.

“You know I have a long day ahead of me today. It'll take an hour to drive to the park—and that’s without considering traffic.”

“Don’t go. You only get so much time off. Let’s do something together.” Anna drew the bedsheets beneath her chin as she staved off the cold of the room.

“Well, I already made plans with my friends. They’re sort of expecting me to meet them there."

“You always have an excuse.”

“Come on, give me a break.” Vincent leaned over the mattress to kiss her.

There she was, with her facial features caressed by the soft orange glow of the adjacent lamp. Vivid blue eyes, luscious brown hair that spilled over the shoulders, a thin nose, and a subtly-square jawline—they were distinctive features of his girlfriend that he accurately recalled, despite the years that had passed since they had last been in each others' company. When he saw her smile again, it all came violently flooding back. He brushed away tears that gathered beneath his eyes with the tip of a finger.

"That's the thing about last words," he murmured. "They're so... informal."

The winsome smile that adorned her lips conveyed the beauty and blissful ignorance of a woman who wasn't in mourning. "You speak as if I died."

"No... I did. Five years ago." His voice cracked. He swallowed, licked his lips, and stroked and covered his mouth with his fingers as he desperately stifled his emotion. "And you know what? No one will ever know what really happened. Even you."

"Why do you always return here?" Anna gazed around and examined the bedroom and its contents.

"This room is where I died. That's what you think, isn't it? This is where you last saw me. You probably memorialized it. Or it made you feel so sick, you left as soon as you could. You sat by the phone anxiously, listening for its ring, waiting for someone to call and clear up the confusion... How long did it take?"

She looked at the window and listened to the patter of raindrops against the frame and glass. "It sounds like rain."

He blinked. In an instant, as fast as his eyelids could shut and reopen, they were in a new location. Considering the situation was not real, not tangible, he didn't see the shift as anomalous. He hadn't yet decided if the illusory state of unreality he found himself in was a dream or something else entirely. But it hardly mattered.

Anna opened an umbrella and held it above her head. "The city is never quiet like this. Why aren't you remembering the cars or the people?"

Vincent's response was automatic. "In my years of living here, I'd learned to tune the noise out." His gaze wandered across the deserted streets devoid of the local populace and inherent traffic. Along the way, blurry, indistinct silhouettes of a young man and a young woman walked side-by-side down the sidewalks, jogged across crosswalks, and danced merrily through the streets, negligently and with no regard for safety.

As they drew closer, the definition of their forms focused. Facial expressions were plainly visible. The satisfying crackle of subdued sunshower thunder sounded, and, as pleasant summer raindrops fell, the young woman brushed her sopping hair aside to reveal a mirthful grin concealed beneath.

"You didn't need an umbrella then!" he chuckled lightly.

Anna tilted her head in acknowledgement.

"Our house is in that direction, and," he pointed to the nearby yellow, glass-coated highrise, "that's the apartment we thought we'd move into." He paused to reconsider, then adjusted his aim to be slightly lower so he pointed directly at a specific window. "No. Right there."

"..."

He reached into the rear pocket of his jeans and withdrew his wallet, then unfolded and flattened it. He retrieved the small photograph stored within one of the compartments and admired it wistfully. "You're beautiful... I wish I had taken more pictures."

He hugged his torso as he shivered involuntarily. "It's cold. Are you—" His voice cut off abruptly as he rotated to face Anna and noticed she had vanished. "Ann? Anna?!" The familiar street of his home town had vanished. All that remained was claustrophobic darkness that encircled and constricted him like a predatory boa snake.

Below, inside of sidewalk, spanned an infinite black expanse of nothingness. Cautiously, he stepped forward. The frigid air resisted his weight like how magnets repelled one another, so he appeared to nonsensically hover above the void. Overhead, furious thunder rumbled menacingly and storm clouds black with malice diffused to blot out a picturesque night sky dotted with stars.

The sound of breathing caused him to start. He flicked his chin and glanced over his shoulder to investigate. He spotted an unfamiliar figure who rested on her haunches and presented her deep blue back and wings as she refused to turn around to initiate eye contact. He blanched. “W–What? Where am I? God, I’m not— I'm not dead, am I?"

Before her, a rifle surrounded by brown boots and crowned with a helmet protruded from a patch of freshly excavated dirt. Her head was bowed low in a respectful gesture of mourning. One of her ears flicked attentively as she heeded his words. "Not yet." She rotated her head to gaze at him. Her turquoise eyes, dilated with emotion, pierced directly through him. "Concerned for yourself, are you? You worry not for the suffering of others, yet you also stubbornly cling to your sense of self-preservation."

“I’m not—” He frowned and lowered his head shamefully. “You don't know me.”

“In all of my years, banished to the moon in isolation to contemplate, toiling beside my sister to rule Equestria and stave off animosity and dissention, I’ve yet to encounter someone so… cruel. You truly are willing to hurt anyone if you can first justify it, it seems.” Princess Luna pawed at the nonexistent ground and traced little circles with the tip of her ornamented hoof. “Come. Closer.” When he didn’t comply immediately, she illuminated her horn and dragged him with levitation magic. He yelped and wriggled desperately in a bid to escape, but his efforts were futile.

“Kneel.” She physically forced him down and shoved him onto the invisible ground. He grunted uncomfortably, folded his legs, and sat.

“Watch.”

“Watch what?” He looked around. He touched his shins and shrugged his shoulders anxiously.

Luna waved her hoof. As commanded, the dream realm was assaulted by gusts of warm air. Grains of sand were lifted by the rushing wind and blown into his face. Vincent sputtered and coughed and scratched at his face. When his eyes opened, their surroundings had shifted. He saw sun-bleached walls, pillars, and roofs. Beyond sprawled dusty-brown sunbaked hills and hardy succulents that poked out from the ground. The temperature was unbearably hot; the climate was arid, eager to siphon moisture from the body. A path split from the main dirt road and led to a concrete landing. The front door had been demolished.

The memories of the chaotic raid assaulted him without his consent in uncompromising detail. Late at night, 4:00 A.M. Targets were asleep and never saw them coming. A crash as the door was flung open. Boots stomping. Orders being shouted. A hail of gunfire. A young girl who cowered and wailed in horror.

“That night of her life, you were a monster to her."

Vincent thoroughly scrutinized his hands to verify he wasn't clutching his assault rifle. His flaccid arms drooped onto his thighs listlessly. “I di–didn't... I didn’t hurt her."

“But you killed her father. And for what? What meaningful resolution came of it?"

His hands balled into fists, and he gazed at the parched soil despondently. “I’ve been asking myself that exact same question since..." He grimaced and shook his head.

The breeze swung a small bell suspended from a rope, which caused it to ring subtly. The silence that followed the screams of anguish was deafening.

Luna gestured with her hoof, and the dream realm shifted. Before them stretched a dense forest of impenetrable undergrowth. The air was moist and teemed with noise. All around were the sounds of wild animals as they screamed, ate, and fought while they competed among each other for survival. Ahead stretched a barren, orange-tinted expanse of withered flora that contrasted sharply with the surrounding environment. Chemicals designed to decimate flora. What was once a dense part of the jungle had been rendered to naught but a shadow of its former self.

Bursts of rifle and machine gun fire rattled. Voices screamed indistinct orders amid the mayhem. The earth quaked as explosions boomed distantly and gigantic fiery clouds rose above the jungle canopy. The distinctive roar of planes soaring overhead echoed. Through eyes wide in dismay, Vincent beheld the world awash with fire, decay, and death. Spilt human blood seeped into the soil.

"My father..."

The jungle faded from view as it melted away like a fleeting afterimage. Darkness greeted them. The turbulent storm rumbled, and lightning flashed in the night sky.

Luna released the tension from her shoulders with an accompanying sigh. “A doomed cycle, is it? Of brutality humans are fated to repeat forever?"

Their eyes met. He gazed into her enthralling turquoise irises, and, for a moment, he considered raising his voice and speaking to utter some pitiful attempt at an explanation or justification, but he cowardly remained silent.

"You knew, didn't you? You always knew. But you never tried to fight it."

He hung his head disgracefully. "Yeah."

"My sister was wise to recognize I required time in solitude to understand the truth. I held fiery anger inside of myself for so long, until, eventually, it consumed me. But I was wrong. In the end, in my banishment, I realized my fatal mistake: I had transformed into a monster not of my own volition. In the end, when Twilight Sparkle and her friends showed me the error of my ways, my heart pined for Celestia so that my grief was inconsolable. Unlike my younger, misguided self, blinded by envy and wrath, I don't believe you deserve to be stranded like this."

"How long were you banished?"

"1000 years." Her soft facial expression betrayed the guilt she withheld. "In the end, the coherence was illuminating, like nothing you have ever experienced yet. You will understand one day. We experience phases in our lives as we grow. All are temporary. When this phase of your life ends... well, I wish I could be there beside you."

"You're saying I have to do all of this... alone?"

"For the time being, you won't be." She smiled and coiled a wing around his shoulders. "If not for our memories, loneliness would prevail in times of solitude. I hope, later, when you need, you'll recall this memory."

Though hesitant initially, he lifted his arms when he was ready and wrapped them around her torso to reciprocate the embrace.

The thunder boomed, quieter then, as it retreated. The storm clouds parted to reveal the stars that glistened and the moon that gleamed brilliantly. They withdrew from their mutual embrace and sat side-by-side, content with merely existing for the brief moment of respite, and admired the picturesque celestial beauty together.