Cozy Glow vs. ...Cozy Glow?

I look down upon my slowly petrifying body, my mind filled with worries over the eternal imprisonment I will soon find myself in. Clutching my head, I go over the entire event, what went wrong, what I could have done better, how I could avoid this miserable fate.

Yet, it is all for nothing as my eyes are glazed over with stone and everything goes dark.

I find myself in a pitch black abyss. Is this what being a statue feels like? I heard Discord could listen to what was being said nearby even while petrified but I guess that was 'cause of his dumb chaos magic. Instead, I can feel absolutely nothing.

Weirdly, it seems like there is light in this void, even if does nothing to pierce the darkness surrounding me. A cozy glow coming right from behind me. I turn around, only to find myself... in front of a floating glowing apparition that looks exactly like me, a judging gaze on her face.

"It's quite rude to call your own reflection 'an apparition', you know?", she asks.

"Who are you?"

"I already said it, didn't I? I am you. Or a reflection or a part of you... doesn't particularly matter."

My patience is running low so I scowl at this copycat. "Tall tale. What are you, some spell the princesses came up with to teach me how to be nice wittle filly while I am confined to stone?"

She merely shrugs before confronting me muzzle to muzzle. "You know that is not true. You know exactly what I am. After all, I only know everything you do and know nothing you don't," she said with an infuriating teasing voice.

"Gggrah!", I growl and charge into the apparition as she avoids my attack. "And why would I subject myself to this? I haven't spent long enough here to go crazy and make up an imaginary friend just to feel less lonely!"

My next strike is interrupted by her words. "But we do feel lonely, don't we? This whole league of villains affair was the closest we have ever come to having actual friends."

"Nonsense! I had plenty of friends at the School of Friendship before those stupid six-"

I am quite rudely interrupted by the apparition. "Those weren't friends, those were pawns in our plans. We know this. You know this." She once again closes the distance, looking right into my eyes.

I use this as an opportunity to punch her in the face, yet my hoof simply moves through with no resistance.

She chuckles, my hoof still inside her head. "Did you really think that would work? None of this is real after all, just a product of our mind."

I growl but relent and put a fair bit of distance between us. "So, what now?"

"We wanted to know what went wrong, didn't we? Let us start with misplaced priorities then: power."

I fume with anger at the suggestion. "Of course I want power! If I have power, that means-"

"-that means we will be loved and adored," the apparition quite rudely finishes for me. "Just like the unicorns and the princesses. In hindsight, quite a cyclical line of thought. Friendship is power, yet power is friendship."

Suddenly, light fills part of the void and the apparition turns towards it. My old classroom.

In the center an alabaster unicorn filly, Radiant Sun, performs tricks with her magic, to the ovation of the rest of the class that surrounds her.

Except for one. A lonely pink-coated orphan sits in the corner, reading a book, while occasionally jealously glancing at the popular filly.

"Radiant Sun. Cute, loveable, talented in magic and oh so similar to Princess Celestia, practically a spitting image. Everyone adored her. We envied her and through her, all unicorns." The apparition snarls. "Of course, merely being loved wasn't enough for her. She needed to flaunt that power and the little nerdy orphan was the chosen target."

I turn towards the memory. Radiant Sun approaches the past me with her lackeys, jeering at me. I merely snarl at her before returning to my book which she takes into her telekinesis. I wouldn't find that book until three days later, completely soaked in water.

Day after day she would bully me, only showing her faux kindness to sycophants. Her preventing me from studying how to gain power over unicorns was really vexing me, so I changed strategies from trying to just ignore Radiant Sun to cozying up to her.

The memory changes to me smiling as I give my lunch to Radiant Sun. I kowtowed before her and performed all the little task she came up with to be my so-called 'penance'. I played the naive little fool of her group that happily followed orders.

The scene then changes to Radiant Sun arguing with her two groupies as I demurely stand to the side, an innocent confused expression upon my face. A little 'slip of tongue' by the fool here and there and they were at each other's throats after the lies they told each other came to light. Maybe a genuine friendship would weather the storm but not the fake friendship of a popular filly and her lackeys who used each other for influence among the foals at school.

Soon, the entire school turned against Radiant Sun, even the teachers, when they realised that their star student had such a rotten personality. It was rather satisfying to watch her downfall, though maybe not as much as finally figuring out a way to gain power over unicorns.

A legend of a centaur that could drain magic from ponies. A centaur that happened to really exist and briefly break out of Tartarus before being put back. It was time to pen a letter.

The apparition finishes narrating my thoughts as I just now realised she was doing. The memory once again fades into nothingness.

"So? What was the point of showing me this?"

She shakes her head in disappointment, confusing me. "The only reason we chased after power was to get rid of our loneliness, mimicking Radiant Sun. In doing so, we copied her downfall, as all our lies were revealed."

The scene of me being surrounded in the courtyard of the School of Friendship appears in the abyss for a brief moment.

I can feel tears running down my cheeks, sadness mixing with anger. "Well how else was I supposed to do it! I don't get it how other creatures manage to make friendships! How they make them genuine! But manipulating them? That... That I can do..."

I realise, anger has left me. My life, even before being petrified, had been quite miserable, wasn't it?

The apparition looks down at my prone form. "But we could learn. There wouldn't be a school for friendship if it was that easy. Instead, we used that knowledge to sink further and further into our delusion. To manipulate other creatures even better."

A pause sets in. Both of us looking into each other's eyes.

My reflection breaks the silence. "Question is, do we want to be better? Answer honestly, we would only be lying to ourself here."

Another pause set in. This time I avert my gaze as I mull over it. With a meek raspy voice I answer, "Y-yes... I wish I was better."

"Good. At least we recognize it. What are we going to do about it?"

"There is nothing to be done, it is too late for it. I walked the path of self-destruction and arrived at my damnation, encased in stone."

She smiles slightly and fades away, leaving me alone in the void.

And then everything goes white.