She remembered that day so clearly. It was indented in her mind, and she was forced to live with that memory every day since. Why did that have to happen? She had asked herself that question every single day since the disaster. It bit at her all the time, demanding an answer. But Twilight couldn’t answer it. That question had often driven her insane for that exact reason. It kept her up at night. When she did get to sleep, it entered her dreams, transforming them into nightmares. She wanted to go back more than anything. Back to when everything was fine and she wasn’t under so much stress trying to keep up some stupid illusion. She was a moron for thinking that she could recreate what the meteor destroyed. In only one day, everything had gone wrong, and now, she found herself on a stool, a rope pressing against her neck. Had she asked her past self if this day would ever come, she would have said no.
She was the last pony on the planet. She had tried to hide that truth away for the past year. Run away from it. But no matter how hard she tried, it would always catch up to her. She was alone. Her family was gone. Her friends were gone. Even Equestria’s rulers were killed. She was lucky, but she was unlucky. Both, for the same reason: being the only survivor of that disaster.
Right now, she just wanted to be with her friends and family, and if it meant joining them in death, she would do it. She had been standing on the stool with her head in the noose for three hours, contemplating suicide, and now, she was sure she wanted to do it. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, ready to kick the stool away.
“Twilight.”
She stopped, and opened her eyes. Standing in front of her was Rainbow Dash. No, it wasn’t Rainbow Dash. The real Rainbow Dash was dead. She still remembered when she found her corpse, lying lifelessly beside Applejack in her cellar. Twilight didn’t respond to Rainbow Dash, so the Pegasus spoke again.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Twilight retorted, her voice cracking, and tears pooling at the edges of her eyes. “This place is nothing but a jail cell! I want to leave! I don’t want to be on this stupid planet anymore!”
“You have us, don’t you?”
“You? You’re just a spell I found in the royal archives.” Twilight sighed. “Or, what was left of it.”
Tears released from Twilight’s eyes as she remembered the day of the disaster.
Twilight raced throughout all of Ponyville, making sure that everypony was safe inside their homes, and that no one was still outside. She was breathing heavily from all the running and stress. Spike sat on Twilight’s back, anxiously, watching as the the huge rock in the sky made its way towards the surface. By now, it was a large ball of fire, closing in on the horizon. It would impact any moment now.
A week earlier, news of the meteor’s discovery had spread throughout the entire town like a sickness, expanding towards the outskirts of Equestria and further. Worry and tension followed, spreading at the same speed as the news. As it turned out, the detected meteor was large and powerful enough to cause worldwide destruction and extinction. Nopony slept, because they were too panicked to sleep. Nopony went to work, because they were too overwrought to focus. Nopony knew what the outcome of the collision would be. That’s what terrified them to the core. The princesses had attempted to prevent the disaster, trying to use their magic to send the meteor away from the planet. Unfortunately, Celestia and Luna’s magic weren’t strong enough to do so. Their magic could only raise the sun and moon specifically, so their magic combined couldn’t bounce the meteor back. Everypony had unloaded questions onto Equestria’s rulers, but in vain. On the predicted day of collision, Twilight had been ordered to get everypony to a safe place underground while she and Luna try to protect the citizens of Canterlot, and that’s what she did.
The huge fireball was alarmingly close to the ground.
“I think we’re good,” Twilight said, sure that everypony was in a safe location.
“We don’t have much time!” Twilight’s worried assistant warned. Twilight glanced over and saw how close the meteor really was, her heart jumping to her throat. It would impact any second now.
Her mind raced. She hadn’t actually thought of a place to wait out the collision. She thought about the castle, but she didn’t recall there being a basement anywhere…
In only moments, her mind clicked, a light bulb flashing above her head. The library! It may have been destroyed, but the basement she built should have still been there! Twilight began her mad dash towards the library. The teleportation spell only worked a certain distance away from the library, so she needed to get close enough for it to work. She panted, but she didn’t stop running. She felt Spike’s claws tapping rapidly on her back.
Illuminating her horn, she initiated the teleportation spell, picturing the library’s basement in her mind. She summoned more magic, a glowing white ball forming at the tip of her horn. She needed to make sure the spell was powerful enough to teleport Spike as well. The glowing rock in the sky lit the earth like a beacon, casting an orange red shade on the ground. Spike watched as the meteor sailed across the sky, about to connect with the ground. It looked the size of an entire planet, and the fact that it was engulfed in fire only made it more threatening.
“Please go faster!” Spike said, impatiently.
Her horn, completely powered up, Twilight ignited the spell. Her horn only flashed, sparks raining from the white sphere. She was still too far away from the library. She would have used her wings to go faster, but even after a few months, she still wasn’t accustomed to them, so they would have only slowed her down. Her legs worked at the ground, carrying her with great momentum. Along the way, she ignited her horn a few more times, resulting in only sparks. Soon, however, she was sure that she was within close range of the library. For the last time, she ignited the spell that was prepared at her horn. Before she had disappeared however, her front right hoof impacted something in the road, causing her to stumble, and lose her balance. The mass on her back had disappeared as she had reappeared in a different location.
Her vision was going all over the place, and she impacted a hard wood floor, rolling on the ground before hitting a wall. She heard a clatter of metal objects hitting the ground. Opening her eyes quickly, she was greeted with the sight of the lab she had built underneath her library. They had made it!
Twilight’s excitement faltered once she realized what was missing from the picture.
“Spike!”
She powered her horn and teleported herself back outside, her vision darting aimlessly in search for the purple dragon. He was nowhere in sight, and her heart was attacked by panic.
Her eyes then fell on her assistant, who was a long distance away from her, on the other end of the road. She galloped towards her assistant, seeing that the meteor was only seconds away from impacting the ground. Her legs pushed, and pushed, propelling her at high speeds. Her assistant grew as the two got closer, both running towards each other. She lit her horn, prepared to teleport her and Spike back to the lab the moment the two made contact.
A huge explosion screamed out into the sky, piercing Twilight’s ears. The noise was followed by the ground rumbling and buildings shaking. From the distance, a gust of wind and piled up rock was making its way towards them at the speed of light. Twilight leaped outwards, reaching her hoof for Spike, as her assistant did the same.
She released the spell.
Her whole world seemed to go in slow motion. Spike’s body glided through the air slowly as certain death made its way towards them. The space between Spike’s hand and Twilight’s hoof got ever smaller, as Twilight’s body slowly disappeared into a white capsule.
The space got smaller.
And smaller.
Hand and hoof were about to collide.
Twilight was then completely enclosed in the white capsule of the spell.
Her world of white was replaced by the wooden walls, floor, and ceiling of the underground lab.
She hit the ground, winded by the impact of her chest on the hardwood floor. She didn’t care about that though. She needed to know if Spike was okay.
She jumped to her hooves and looked back.
The purple dragon was nowhere to be seen.
Before the alicorn could wail in misery, the door to the lab burst inwards, and a cloud of smoke and rock lurched towards Twilight. She immediately ignited her horn, teleporting herself to a lower layer of the lab. This room was much bigger and taller, a set of stairs lined up against the wall towards a door, hidden at the top above the stairs.
Twilight heard the sound of wood crunching, and at the top of the stairs was a projection of black debris. The area at the top of the room was quickly filled with dust and debris, and an avalanche of rubble made its way down the stairs.
She dashed towards a corner of the room, and stood against the wall. She stimulated her horn once more, and a transparent, purple sphere appeared around her. Any debris that fell onto the sphere bounced right off and onto the ground.
Twilight took deep breaths, heart racing as the black filth filled the room. She still heard the ear-splitting roar of the collision ringing outside. Even from deep inside the basement, it was extremely loud, and she had to cover her ears with her hooves. Even doing so didn’t help much.
Rubble and smoke continued to push its way into the lab, a pile of rubble building up at the center of the room. Debris bounced off of Twilight’s protection orb like rain drops on an umbrella. The exhaustion of magic use began to weigh on her, and holding up the protection spell became increasingly difficult. The adrenaline in her veins had hid the strain on her horn earlier, but now she was starting to feel it.
Pieces of concrete were now cascading off the top of the stairs, and landing hard on the ball of energy, which flickered for a moment, but didn’t disappear. This put more strain on Twilight’s horn, and she became increasingly worried as the lab’s ceiling began to crack and swell, threatening to collapse. Twilight may not have been strong enough to block it, especially with the exhaust she was enduring. Each impact of destroyed wall against the sphere made a loud, bang, before cracking in half and spraying dust in different directions. Twilight couldn’t help but flinch after each strike of concrete.
That moment seemed endless. She prayed mentally that this would soon be over, but the debris just kept falling. The explosion kept up its relentless cry. Her horn was now in pain, and the pain got worse as concrete blocks attacked the force field.
After what seemed like years, it stopped.
Yes, the disaster ended. But the suffering continued.
She remembered teleporting herself out of the lab, and feeling the violent heat and raging winds. She remembered the despair she felt upon seeing Ponyville, having transformed from a gorgeous town to a wasteland of destruction lying about. When she found out what had happened to everypony else… she didn’t want to think about that, though no matter how hard she tried, the cries of pain and misery still echoed in her mind. Seeing her friends, assistant, family, everypony she knew and loved, gone. Even the rulers of Equestria. She remembered finding their bodies beneath the collapsed walls and rubble that was once Canterlot, and now a heaping pile of stone bricks on the ground at the bottom of the mountain where it once sat. Their horns were charred. Presumably, they tried using their magic to protect the ponies in Canterlot, but without success.
Ponyville was destroyed, Canterlot was destroyed, and Cloudsdale didn’t even exist anymore. Miraculously however, many of the spells and books from the Ponyville archives had survived, and after rummaging through the torn pages and surprisingly intact books, she found an illusion spell. A spell that would allow her to change the landscape, and was even capable of creating pony duplicates. Doing so would require a memento that represented the pony one wished to duplicate, however the pony illusion would have the same mind and personality as the real pony. It could talk, think, walk, and even dream. According to the spell’s description, Twilight would have to move the memento, as the pony duplicate could only walk a quarter of a mile away from it. She remembered how happy she was to have come across this spell, crying tears of joy. Now, she knew how stupid of an idea it was to cast that spell.
The alicorn stood at the center of Ponyville, a ripped piece of parchment floating in front of her surrounded by an aura of purple. Twilight read over the spell multiple times, and made sure everything was ready before preparing the spell. She toured Ponyville, searching for any newspapers that had survived the collision, and stuffed them into an old chest she found in the library’s basement. Next, she had scrounged together as many items as she could for the spell. She found an intact mannequin from Rarity’s boutique—or what was left of it—and was fortunate to find a wonderbolt costume she was working on for Rainbow Dash. She managed to find Spike’s nightmare night costume of himself in the remnants of the castle, pieces of a lyre, and three torn and charred red capes. She set the items up around different areas of the town after rummaging what she could.
She released the parchment from her magic and took a deep breath. Booting up her horn, it burst into purple flames. White sparks flared from the tip of her horn, and a white ball began to grow around the purple fire. She fused more magic with the white ball of energy, and it grew, bigger and bigger. Her body rose from the ground as the magic became more intense. White began to flood Ponyville, and everything grew brighter and brighter.
Suddenly, everything flashed white, and a resounding explosion cut through the air.
Twilight gently opened her eyes, and gasped, stunned at the sight before her.
Ponyville was no longer the ruins it was before. It looked exactly as it had before the collision. Smooth roads, intact buildings, bright sky, and filled with ponies. It worked. It actually worked.
It may have worked at the time, but she never considered how difficult it would become. As the months went by, it had taken more of her strength to keep the illusion up. She knew she couldn’t let anyone know the truth. She had to keep everything natural. A few rainy days here, and a few nice days there. The truth was, however, that she had been spending more time trying to manage the illusion that she had practically shielded herself from her friends.
Then, everything had gone completely wrong. She shouldn’t have taken that risk, but when Applejack had started realizing what was happening, she had attempted to cast a memory loss spell on her friends. But that ended in disaster.
A question she had that stuck with her was how those ponies were able to follow her to the town hall. They had gone over the limited distance they could travel away from their mementoes. The spell’s description may have been wrong, but if not, the only way they could have gone the distance they had is if—
“Why don’t you just cast the spell again and tell everypony the truth?” Rainbow Dash said, startling Twilight and shutting down her thought process. She then sighed.
“What’s the point?” she replied softly, neck sore. “At the end of the day, I’m just talking to objects. Everypony I know and love is dead. How am I supposed to live with that? How am I supposed to live with that truth, haunting me every single day?”
Rainbow remained silent.
“I can’t live with that. Up there is a better place and my friends are there right now.”
The Pegasus didn’t move or speak.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve made my decision.”
In one swift motion, she kicked the stool out from beneath her, and a searing pain erupted at her neck. She heard the sound of the rope being strained as it pulled at her neck, cutting off her wind pipe. She couldn’t help but struggle, gurgling escaping her throat. If she still had her wings, she would have used them to escape her fate on impulse, but luckily she had sawed them off beforehand.
She kicked and flailed, and eventually, her body lost its strength, her eyes rolling to the back of her head. The alicorn had reached her end.
As Twilight’s corpse swung lazily, the stuffed wonderbolt costume gently nudged off balance before toppling to the side.