He felt his entire body spaghettify, elongating into a grotesque noodle of seemingly infinite length. The conduit to the end of all things stretched him. It felt like he had the spade of his tail still back in his present while the tip of his snout had arrived at The End.
The second his eyes saw The End, his entire body snapped to the future all at once, winding up completely into his normal self. There should have been a sound when his body snapped together, but the void at the end of the universe was quiet and calm, despite his intrusion.
When Spike arrived at the end of all things, he had expected absolute zero temperature, complete darkness, and no way to breathe. The lack of everything should kill him instantly. Instead, everything just felt calm. There were no stars to look at. And even though Spike didn't breathe, it didn't feel uncomfortable. In fact, he didn't feel much of anything... except the peace that he would no longer hurt anyone. He had done it. He was at The End and that was all that mattered.
Spike's entire being drank in the void. Each of his scales embraced the darkness and his eyes couldn't imagine a scene more tranquil than nothing at all. He couldn't imagine ever being happier and more calm ever again. He wasn't there! He wasn't anywhere! And that meant he wasn't going to hurt anyone. Ever. No more good things—which was a worthy sacrifice to ensure that there wouldn't be anymore bad things.
Nothing.
Just himself, naked and alone at the end of all existence in the inky darkness.
Spike spent a long time drifting there, blanketed in the darkness, reveling in the joy that everyone was now safe from him. All the good and bad he might've done were now over, and it didn't mean anything billions of years later. Everyone was safe, and so was he.
He wasn't sure how or when it had happened, but he must have died. In his many efforts to die, he hadn't really considered an afterlife. But now that he was here, it was exactly what he wanted: nothing.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
He smiled at his new state, drifting along, letting the lack of gravity make him slowly fall towards an infinity that would never end. He was finally dead and that was all that mattered.
After what felt like weeks of calm, black serenity, an awful idea stabbed the very back of Spike's mind. It then percolated around until it encompassed his entire being, causing a deep pain from the very top of the spikes on his head, to the tips of his toes.
He wasn't supposed to still be here.
Granted, Spike had expected and hoped for nothing. But he wasn't supposed to be conscious. To actually experience thoughts and even... a sense of time passing!? No—the afterlife wasn't supposed to be like that.
He wasn't supposed to "experience" anything. He was supposed to become the void—not just be surrounded by it. If he was experiencing time, and time was supposed to be non-existent at The End, that meant that this black darkness was going to be his only companion for the endless duration that is eternity.
This was the worst afterlife he could've imagined.
Did that mean he wasn't actually dead? Death was supposed to be non-existence. And the fact that Spike was still thinking and breathing and in general observant of his thoughts and feelings was not death as it was supposed to be.
Spike breathed a sky blue flame, trying to reconstruct the time spell. He had NEVER meant to try to ever come back. He didn't know about pinpointing the right time to land or the right teleportation aspects to it—anything. His eyes had glazed over even attempting to understand those enigmatic spells.
He spent the next few hours trying to mess with the time spell, but the one portal he was able to construct took him right back to the void.
At the realization that he was truly stuck at The End, Spike clutched at himself, forming a tight ball of purple scales. Tears clung to his eyelids in the zero gravity environment. The large drops didn't adequately represent the agony of how much he wanted to rip himself apart. This isn't what he wanted! He wanted to protect others against himself! But here? He couldn't protect himself against himself. He would spend the rest of eternity endlessly trying to stop thinking and being unable to. He couldn't shut off his consciousness from unceasingly thinking about his own sorry predicament.
He kept trying to wipe off the tears from his eyes, but even flicking them away caused the drops to orbit around him like his own personal never ending rainstorm.
In the midst of his sobs, he said his first words aloud in weeks.
"Help me... please."
The words barely came out more than a whisper, but he truly meant them. He couldn't protect himself from his own endless thoughts. He couldn't do this on his own anymore—if he had ever been able to at all.
"Somepony, some creature, anyone... please help me." He flung off a few more teardrops away from his eyes, but they promptly started orbiting him.
The void didn't respond.
"Please..."
"Umm..." said the void.
Spike's eyes went wide, and he noticed the tiniest bits of light far away. It was the darkness of the night of a new moon, except he couldn’t see distinct stars. It was as if a shadow had decided to become light and diffuse itself all across The End.
He did his best to clear his eyes away and saw his own distorted reflection in some kind of mirror. The tears he had orbiting around him collided with the spectral image of himself, slowly making what Spike was talking to clearer. It was a perfect metallic orb that reflected all light. The moisture started pooling on the surface of the orb.
"H—Hello?" said Spike. "W—who are you?"
"Umm..." repeated the orb.
"Umm...?" said Spike.
"Yes, exactly!" said the orb.
Spike's emotions curved completely to the other side the universe. "Your name is Umm?"
"Yes," said Umm. "What brings you all the way out here, Spike?"
"You—you know me?"
"Well yeah," said Umm. "That form isn't that common. Though it is strange seeing you like this... now of all places. Very strange. What brings you to The End, Spike?"
Spike had a lie ready. He had been lying for a long time now, always prepared to tell the right half-truth to avoid letting it slip how suicidal he really was. But... no. Whatever Umm was, it didn't matter anymore. It didn't need to be protected from himself, physically or mentally.
"I came here to die, but it didn't work."
"No... death never really works out how we would like it to, sorry to disappoint you."
Spike didn't know what to say to that.
"How do you know know what death is like?" asked Spike.
"I've died many times, Spike, long before I first met you. I've committed suicide thousands of times. There's really no end to existence. There's always another afterlife. But I eventually found an afterlife—a universe I liked. Though I didn't really think I'd make it this far into it. But I liked it here very much. I'll be sticking around to watch it cycle soon enough."
"It doesn't end?" Spike asked. "Ever?"
The orb gave no clues to its feelings and expressions, but it was almost like it was shrugging in the darkness. "No."
"Then death doesn't mean anything!" shouted Spike.
"On the contrary, it does cut you off from your previous life. There are quite a few consequences for death. But if you were hoping for a nice place to cease to exist entirely, I confess that you will be disappointed for an exponential trillions of years, and beyond. I know I used to be. But... well... it worked out for me."
"HOW!?" asked Spike.
"I like this place. Or at least the universe that used to be here before it all disappeared. But soon it will all congregate together again and explode again into a big bang. I'll recreate it and keep having fun. It'll be nice."
"What was so great about this universe?"
"I made a lot of friends here... enjoyed a lot of chaotic scenarios I had never seen before. Fell in love, and we've been together ever since."
"Friends, really? But what happens when you inevitably betray them?" asked Spike.
"It's not inevitable. And even if that happens, well... there's forgiveness. I wouldn't be where I am today without several large doses of forgiveness in many directions. You should probably forgive yourself."
"What do I have to forgive myself for?"
"For all those suicidal thoughts and feelings. It's not like they're permanent. They ebb and flow every so often, especially for one as moderately long lived as you are. They happen. But they're not completely you."
Spike wasn't sure how to respond to that. "But I have to protect my friends by not being there! I have to die."
"Spike, take it from me. You're fine. You don't need to protect others from yourself. You're quite good at staying in control of yourself. And even when you're not, you have friends that forgive you."
"You can't know that! You can't know that things work out!" shouted Spike.
"Spike, I know your future intricately more than you. You're fine. Just trust me on this."
"How do you know?"
"I was there."
Spike stared exasperated at the orb. "What?"
"I think I may need to split up, just so you get it."
To Spike's horror, an eagle's talon sprouted out of the orb and made a snapping sound. Light appeared around himself and Umm started tearing itself apart in front of him. The yin and yang of the two creatures slurped away from each other and amalgamated into new forms. The black mass on the left turned gray and started growing fur, feathers, a horn and many other shapes in between. While the white mass on the right formed into yellow fur and pink hair, before a rush of feathers sprouted out from her.
The one on the right stood up, a single antler protruding from her head.
"Actually, I think that one used to be mine," said the long serpentine creature to the pegasus, plucking off her antler and attaching it to himself.
"Yikes, this form is really suited for a planet, huh?"
"You're telling me, this is so strange," he said, wiggling himself into something that made sense to himself.
Spike could only stare in shock at the sight of them. "Fluttershy and Discord?"
"Ah yes! That was my name. It's been so long!" said Discord.
"You didn't really forget, did you?" asked Fluttershy.
"Almost. I mean, billions of years is a really long time. It took me forever to remember Spike back there."
"Umm is a much better form for remembering things," said Fluttershy. "I feel like I lost all my intelligence in this form."
"Yeah... I can't stay like this for long," said Discord, who was shaking slightly.
"I don't understand," said Spike, his eyes bulging at the sight of them. "How? Why? For how long? What!?"
Fluttershy peered at Discord, "Are we supposed to answer? Does that break time or anything?"
"I can't make heads or tails in this form," said Discord, his eyes unable to be separated from Fluttershy's. "I'm getting a headache trying to think without you."
Fluttershy looked back at Spike, "Can we answer your question as Umm? We just aren't ourselves right now."
Spike just stared at them before slowly nodding his head.
"Phew!" said Discord and Fluttershy in unison as they slammed into each other, their yin and yang darkness and light amalgamating into the mirrorlike orb that was Umm.
"That's so much better, you have no idea!" said Umm.
If Spike had gravity, he would have sat down on a chair, instead he just floated there exasperated.
"Now, what was your question again?"
"H—how did you manage to become... well... this?" said Spike, gesturing to the orb.
"That is a stupidly long story. You want that now!?" said Umm. "Okay, long story short: Love."
"Great, that explains everything," said Spike curtly.
"Spike... sometimes after billions of years, you find out things about yourself that you wouldn’t expect."
Spike didn't know how to respond to that.
"Let's take things back to you. We are a little harder to explain," said Umm, as if it was chuckling at its own joke. "Now, you're in your suicidal phase. From what I remember, it does last a while. But you make it through just fine. You find yourself a nice..." Umm hesitated. "Well... I probably shouldn't spoil everything. But you’re alive, yet suicidal, yet able to live anyway. Yes, that seems like a good enough way to leave it off as."
"But I don't want to be suicidal! I don't want to think this way all the time! I don't want to be like this!!!"
"Ah, that's a good step to be at for sure. But you can't make that the sole focus of your being. Sometimes you just gotta admit you’re suicidal. Accept it... and move on. I think that worked out pretty well for you."
"Really!?" asked Spike.
"Honestly, you spent more time with Key and Luna with those kinds of problems than you ever did with us," said Umm. "Though, we may have just accidentally changed the past so you may talk to us more? No—wait, I think it's the same. Yeah, it's the same."
"You sound nothing like Fluttershy or Discord," said Spike. "You can't be them."
"If you looked at yourself even 10 years from when you left, you wouldn't be able to recognize yourself, Spike. Everyone changes in unimaginable ways given time. And that's okay. What you're looking at today is the combination of billions of years of the beings you know as Fluttershy and Discord being inseparable. We aren't them anymore. We've changed. And you will change. The Spike in front of us right now does not have the same level of suicidality at all points in time. You'll have good and bad days. But... take it from us who attended your funeral, things work out fine."
"I... I have a funeral?" asked Spike.
"Well, yeah!" said Umm. "Everybody dies eventually. Well... except for us. We're preparing to be the Deities of the next cycle of this universe. And you—well, you could be in many, many, many afterlives beyond this one at this point. But it's all good."
Spike didn't like the idea of an afterlife, or worse—afterlives. But he did like the idea of his own funeral.
"I get to die?" reaffirmed Spike.
"Yep!" said Umm.
"Well... that's good then. How long until I die?"
"Whooo... uhh.... a long time?"
Spike cringed.
"Uhhh.... that's not what you wanted to hear. But it was the truth... so... ummm..." said Umm. "It's a REALLY good life. I probably shouldn't spoil it for you. But trust us. You got this. It's good, you're good. You have a ginormous hoard. Your family is good. Your beautiful cosmic wife lives longer than even you do. And you have so many batpony foals you practically single-handedly kick start the species back up again. And I probably just said too much."
"What."
"Okay, I'm still really bad at awkward situations, so can I just shove you back into your own time now?" a light blue portal appeared behind Spike. "I mean, if that's alright with you."
Spike turned his head back at the serene portal, hesitating. He really wasn't sure what to make of all this.
A yellow hoof poked at Spike, nudging him towards the portal. "You have a good life, now okay! Please don't mention this conversation to Discord or Fluttershy, they're not quite ready to know... anything yet. But hey, you're good at keeping secrets! Right? Right. Good! Bye now."
And Spike was flung backwards in time.