I feel myself spring to life, something jolting through me and waking me up. I cannot tell what it is, the sensation is new to me. It feels pleasant but... Strange. Almost electrifying. This foreign feeling though... I love it. My mind is going mad with excitement, before it fades away, leaving me again.
I take a look around, now noticing that I appear to be in a place that is completely black. There is no light, not even a single spark. An odd taste is in my mouth, and an odd smell in the air. Not an unpleasant one, just odd. I can't hear anything, it's painfully silent. I try opening my mouth to yell or scream, but I can't feel my mouth. I raise my hooves to check my face, but wherever they are, they do not move.
Maybe... This is the dead world? It would explain my lack of limbs, and my lack of a head. Or a mouth to talk with. But if that is so, then why can I smell something? And this strange taste in my mouth, what could that be?
It comes to my attention that I am being surprisingly calm, no doubt if anyone else was in my position they would be shocked, they would be panicking. Instead I just... Think and observe. I suppose it's nothing different to what I've been doing my entire life, experimenting with things and observing the reaction to it. Now that I think about it I never got to finish that last experiment I was doing, the last I remember I was just finishing my electronic brain scanner, to create an electronic duplicate...
Oh.
Right.
I'm the electronic simulation of myself that I was creating.
Either that or I am dead.
Really though, if I am the digital clone then my real self in Equestria would have set up my vision by now, it's getting irritating this darkness, this cold. It's not actually affecting me of course, I set myself some precautions- to make sure I would be able to function properly, so that even if I did end up freezing I would only feel it, but my brain wouldn't be affected by it.
If I could laugh I would, I just realised how surreal all this is, I've only just started to exist and I have so many memories of the past. My mother, my father, my sister, my marefriend... I'll never see them again. I'm destined to be bound to a machine for the rest of my life. Meanwhile, my real self gets to live it up in the real world, with real ponies, real friends, and all I'll ever get is to sit around here till the end of days.
Yes, the end. This computer wasn't just built to be able to support an equine consciousness, it was built to survive till the end. And all because I was curious. I wanted to live forever, to be able to witness the end, but since I was only a unicorn and I wasn't able to live forever like Celestia and Luna, or any of the princesses for that matter, I decided I would make the next best thing. A technological copy of myself to live for me, to see the end and witness it.
Ah, there we go, a spark of light, looks like my real self didn't abandon me... Not that I would, I just didn't know what I would do in that situation. There, it's... It's full screen, like a video. He's, I mean, I've got it set up. I must've linked my vision to the face-cam crystal we have on top of the crystal monitor. Magic really is full of wonders.
I'm sitting in my chair, I mean the other me is- the original, my mint green mane is drifting over my left eye... Celestia is that really what I look like to other people? My golden-yellow pelt washing over me and shining... I make it sound so poetic. My chair is one of those blue spinny chairs that you get, I always did like them, being able to spin around was one of my major obsessions as a foal, one of the most fun things that I did when I was young.
I can see the edge of the desk that I keep my monitor at, the white wooden rim polished with only the occasional mark of Zebrican food, it's one of my favourites. Really hard to find in Equestria since Zebras aren't too common. Lucky though that my neighbour is a Zebra and runs a foreign food shop. I can't get enough of the stuff, but I suppose now I won't ever be able to eat that again. Computers don't eat.
Beyond my desk and my chair and myself is a gigantic crystal matrix, running across the walls, the ceiling, the floor. I spent moons developing that matrix, and that's me right now... That's what I am, just information running around in those crystals, one slight miscalculation in that and I lose a part of myself. Crush one of those crystals and I become corrupt data. It's what keeps me functioning now. If it goes, I go too. The crystals themselves are many different colours, shining yellow, blue, gold and green, thin lines of condensed pure violet magic connecting them. Red light encased inside each and every one of them. It's beautiful.
And I made it. I built this structure from nothing. I personally went to the mines to fetch these crystals myself, dug them out with my own hooves, engraved them with the runic symbols they needed, and suspended them with the magic I had. Fuelled them with my magic and let them work.
I realise that I had been daydreaming, and refocus on myself, seeing my mouth moving, but no sound still. I realise that my real-world self hasn't linked me up to the microphone yet, or the speakers. Oh, never mind- I'm reaching over to the microphone now, I'm connecting the wire and now... How do I activate it? I- oh, that feeling's back again. That weirdly pleasant sensation. Oh... I can... I can feel the microphone... As though it's a part of me now... I follow my instinct, and...
"ooh... That's not right. Hello, sorry about that-" Oh, Celestia! Does my voice really sound that deep? "I forgot that I hadn't linked you up to the audio system yet, but you should be able to hear me now. I'll have to keep you waiting on the speakers though, we both know how hard it is to program voices. For now though, I'll link your voice to a word document, I'll be able to see what you want to say."
Ooh, I'm clever! It's far easier to translate noise into words than words into noise, I suppose though I should try to communicate with him... Me... Whatever, it's getting lonely here. I reach out the same as before, feeling that wonderful sensation coursing through my electrical body, and... "Ahhh, there. You should be able to see my words as words on a screen now. I feel so much better for being able to talk. So, how long has it been since you uploaded me, I don't exactly have a watch here do I?" ...and off again, don't want him reading all my thoughts after all... Although I suppose he has the same thoughts and secrets as me. I'll just leave it anyway.
"Good, now we're able to communicate, both ways. It's about two hours after we uploaded ourselves, I ran into some trouble. Are you comfortable in there?," I say.
"Well, I'm about as comfortable as one can be when they're trapped in a computer... Although I suppose we both volunteered for this, so neither of us can complain. Still, what sort of trouble?" I reply.
"Uh... The magic couldn't sustain you for long. About an hour's time maximum. Then another hour to recharge. I had to shut you off quickly so we didn't explode. Luckily though, I managed to find another energy source which we had experimented with before which should be able to sustain you for another hundred years at least. Electricity. In that time I'm sure we'll think of something. "
"Well, if we're using electricity then that runs the risk of the crystals shattering, which means that you'd have to shut me down each night so they can cool off. Just do it, we both know we have to, shut me down and go have a little fun with our marefriend."
"I- I'll try to think of another, better source of power for you. goodnight."