//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Somewhere, Somewhen // Story: Shadows of Eden // by RoccoRoccs //------------------------------// "Blast, test subject number 12. Subject 14718." A loud feminine voice boomed into the chamber as I trotted through the doorway. I had been given my briefing, assigned my destination and prepped for egress over the last few hours. As noninvasive as Egress had been with the probing and testing, I had not counted on the physical endurance needed to complete the last minute stress test. My coat felt clammy beneath my suit from the sweat being slowly chilled off my body by the cold room I was now standing in. Shaking hooves, chattering teeth and my coat standing on end all culminated in a faux panic attack that I was silently having all the while. The suit, though form fitting, breathed as if it were made of mesh and clung to my form with almost embarrassing intent. Despite my protest for wearing it, I was quickly silenced when I was told that the mishap with the intern had not only sent her to another country, but also removed all of her coat in the process. "Please state your full name and today's date for the official record." A buck asked over the intercom. "Dingy Beige, June 30th, 2203. UPID BM 14718 M14." I shouted just as I had rehearsed. "Excellent, please take your place on the platform and activate your Cuff. Please tap on the Homing app, it will be the red circle on the home screen with a yellow arrow in the center." Egress asked through shaken words as though she were about to receive a long awaited present. With trembling hooves I stood on the large circular grate in the middle of the room and fumbled through the menu until I matched the symbol I had been told to find. The pulsing red icon emitted a halo when tapped and a soft buzz radiated through my arm to accompany it. I watched the screen show a conglomerate of symbols and icons as it began the process of linking up to the lab's wireless signal beacon, another thing I was told would help me find my way home. Everything in my heart wanted to run, flee from this place and never look back, but I was rolling through the motions in the hope that all of this would turn out to mean something. I wanted for everything I had been told to be true, I wanted this panic attack to fade away and stop robbing me of my vision. Through it all I pushed forward in hopes I would be the change I wanted to see in the world. "Initialization complete." The device said followed shortly by 3 high pitched chirps. "Very good, Dingy. Please turn to face the control room, Jet will be with you shortly." Egress said from behind the thick glass wall. It's never the actual event that you fear, it's the waiting, no doubt about it. I stood as stoic as I dared as I tried to control my breathing. Four seconds in, hold, four seconds out, breathe Dingy, breathe. My heart was beating in massive thumps in my chest, making my legs twitch with every passing moment. By the time the white mare with a dark black mane and tail found their way into the room, I was on the verge of throwing up. "Hello, Ms.Dingy. My name is Jet, I will be your administering unicorn. Please, do your best to relax as much as you can as I read to you what's to come next." She said as she trotted to the lab table to my right and retrieved a large metal cone encrusted with gem stones and slipped it over her own horn. "Easy for you to say, you are not the one about to be stripped naked and launched into another country." Good one, Dingy... Way to break the ice. "I can assure you that will not happen." She said with a laugh as she took her place before me. "Today we will be attempting a test of the BLST spell matrix with the goal of sending a living being forward in time in hopes to map the quantum network's faded magical connections. You will be sent forward in time to gather data to support our findings and hopefully give us an idea of how to better control the accuracy of item location. You are to arrive at your prescribed time line, walk for one mile and press your homing signal at which time you will be pulled back to this timeline. Do you have any questions before we begin?" "So I just, trot around for an hour and return?" "Yes, that is correct, but specifically you need to trot for one mile. The movement will charge the capacitors to recharge and launch a counter spell to bring you home when you press the homing button. This is less the destination and more the journey. Along the trip, that should feel brief to you, your Cuff will gather all the data we need, once there it will automatically lock on to an object that we believe to be there and source out its string to map it. Do not launch the homing beacon until the battery life is at least 63% or you run the risk of a misfire of the spell. It could take days to recharge through normal activity. Do you understand?" She said with a dead serious glare as if she was trying to tattoo it into my memory. "63% or I'm stuck there. Got it." I said as I felt the cold sweat begin to pour over me. "Very good. Please remain perfectly still and wait to step back until told to do so." She said as she attached a Cuff of her own and attached a long cable to it and another to the horn augmentation. "This will only take a moment. We are counting on you Dingy, you can do this." She said with a smile. "Test in progress. All non-accentual technicians please stand clear. Blast Spell Matrix charging... 80%" I stood ready for what would come next and did my best to restrain myself from running. My body twitched and shook as I did my best to not feed into my flight instinct as I listened to the count down to 100%. "Blast Spell Matrix Charging 95%... Please stand clear." "This is it Dingy, you won't feel a thing." Jet said as her horn began to glow a brilliant shade of purple that fluoresced her coat a bright blue. The light was not bright but even still it was hard to look at directly without squinting at it's otherworldly glow. I watched as she lowered her head and aimed the spire of blinding light directly at me. "Blast Spell Matrix charged... 100%. Proceed with caution." The loud voice said. Without hesitation, the spell fired enveloping me in the brilliant glow I had been looking at. My entire body was overcome with a cold sensation like a winter breeze that seemed to come from behind me. I couldn't help but jump the moment I saw it coming, nearly falling flat on the steel grate below me in fear that I would have all my fur blown off. "It's working! Dingy, please take two steps back! Safe travels!" I heard Egress say proudly among the cheers from the control room. One step, two steps... "AHHHHHH!" I screamed as I felt a force pull me the rest of the way into a void in the wall behind me. I watched fear as I fell though a bright purple ring of blazing fire and ether and into a world of pulsing blue and black fire. As quickly as I had fallen through, I was moving even faster now, the doorway forever lost to me as panic sat in. I was moving faster and faster through tunnels and paths as the bright walls began to pulse brightly in white. I clinched my eyes shut and screamed in fear that I was about to be killed by my own selfish desire to change the world. With a bright flash of white that I could see with my eyes clinched shut, I covered my face with my hooves and was shocked to see the bones in my legs through it all. As fast as it happened, it ended and the feeling of my body's own weight came back to me along with darkness. I could feel the ground under me was solid, but I could not bring myself to open my eyes out of fear of what I might see. Carefully I lowered myself to the ground and began to quietly cry to myself. What had I just done!? I had agreed to do something as dangerous as this? I was a fool, I had been tricked and helped them time travel!? The dull ringing in my ears gave way to a soft chirping. I pulled the Cuff under me to try and quiet it down but it just kept chirping, infrequently at different tones and frequencies. I pounded it into the ground below me but it wouldn't shut up for anything I did. I sat there for far too long before I realized that the sound wasn't coming from below me, but rather it was coming from above me. Cautiously I opened my eyes and saw dirt and... was that a leaf? No! A feather!? Sure enough it was a small feather laying on the ground right under me. I poked my nose at the soft blue and black shedding and felt how soft it was. The chirping wasn't coming from my Cuff... It was coming from something I had not heard for as long as I could remember. It was coming from birds. My head jerked to the sky to see them but if I had been excited about the birds, I nearly started crying again when I saw a massive canopy of leaves and a crystal clear sky above me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, so clear and blue that I could just jump in a swim. With dark green vibrant leaves the trees around me stood taller than buildings in my home town. I stood and felt a tear roll down my cheek as I watched a large brown and white bird fly right in front of me and take lite on a tree limb just feet away. It was like I fell into a dream, a world so perfect that I felt like I was making it less pure just by being here. Slowly my senses came back to me one by one. My eyesight sharpened and I could see that the bird I was admiring was actually a hawk, a bird I had only seen in textbooks! My hearing keyed me into the sound of water tumbling gently over stones in a nearby creek and my smell... I could only smell the sweet scent of pine and moisture that hung in the air like a gentle haze, feeding every living thing around me. "Where am I?" My leg chirped and vibrated as my Cuff pulled up a map function and began scanning the world around me. Once it had been completed it chirped three more times to signify it was done. I couldn't look at it, I was transfixed to everything I had ever hoped I would get to see. To many it would have just seemed like a stand of trees in the woods somewhere, but to me this was heaven. After what I was sure was an hour, I finally looked down at my Cuff. The screen was hazed over with dew that I had to clear off with the sleeve of my suit to see. The dial read 'Everfree Forest' for as far as I could read on my map. "Everfree Forest? That place has been gone for nearly a hundred years..." I mumbled to myself. But the letters and symbols did not lie. But one thing I do recall from my time at the university was that the Everfree was at best fifteen square miles and this key on my screen was saying that it was fifteen miles in every direction. What had happened in ten years that had resulted in it being this large? Had they succeeded? Did it work!? DID I HELP MAKE THIS HAPPEN!? I silently rejoiced in my mind as I did a little dance that this beautiful and lush world could have been partly my doing. Everything I was seeing was the work of brilliant minds coming together and making something bad into something great. Maybe I had misjudged them, maybe they were just slaves to a corporate machine, doing work to feed their own interests and had no clue what they were really doing until now. Spark, as far as I was led to believe, was still heavily in the wrong, but maybe Dr. Egress and her team really were fighting the good fight. As far as I could see it was green and lush, if this really was the future, then they did exactly what they had set out to do. After spending nowhere near enough time taking in my surroundings, I dusted myself off and set out to find the source of the sound of water. Everywhere I looked I saw nature unmolested. The trees wore thick layers of bark and moss, showing no signs of pony contact for many years. The forest was teaming with life and sound as my silent hoofsteps led me down hill to a stream of crystal clear water babbling over pebbles. I stepped down off a ledge and onto a hard surface beneath crumpled leaves and plant matter. It was an odd sensation going from the soft spongy soil to... whatever this was I was standing on. It was like bedrock but perfectly flat. I looked up and down the bank I had just hopped off of and to my surprise it seemed to stretch on in either direction. With a hoof, I pawed at the ground and revealed a stripe of bright yellow that had been painted on a smooth black surface. This was not bedrock, this was a road. "A road? What's a road doing in a forest?" I said under my breath. It must have been unused for years judging by the lack of clearing from the leaves and how deep the debris was. I felt my Cuff vibrate, the soft beeps being overcome by the sound of the stream I was about to drink from. I looked down to see the map icon pulsing. I took a sip from the stream and took in the heavy tastes of minerals and its purity before tapping it. The screen lit up with lines and little red dots, one of the lines shown in bright yellow and I was standing right on it. I tapped the blue dot in the center of the screen and it zoomed in and to my surprise it gave an actual name to the road I was on. "Continental Avenue? I know that road." I looked around again, my brain trying to place where I was to things I had seen in my past to hopefully get an idea of where I was. But the only road that came to mind was the one on the edge of town near the dump near my house. This thing can't be right, that road was horrible, smelled like butt and never had views like this. At that moment my screen zoomed out and back to the home screen where a new Icon had lit up in vibrant purple, not unlike the unicorn who sent me here's horn. Messages and Schedules. Giving it a quick tap pulled up a screen with mission objectives and a short message. "Trot for one mile north. Trot for 2 miles south for a total of 3 miles. Locate the location for the signal beacon. Activate homing function to return. Huh, I guess they changed the plans at the last minute." I said as I stood from the creek bank and trotted back to the road to get my bearings with the compass app. Each item on my screen was underlined in a way that gave the impression that I could tap it for further details. But the last line was very interesting. Was this the message that I had just received? How was that even possible? I tapped it and listened to the audio play. "Dingy. Dr. Egress, I bet you are wondering how you got this message, huh?" She started with a bubbly tone. "I'm proud to say that the same unicorn that sent you ahead in time was also responsible for this message, if it made it to you. We have uploaded the messages to a satellite that should still be in orbit ten years from now and programmed it to search out your Cuff's signal and relay the message to you. You will receive them in real time as we send them, but you will not be able to respond I am sorry to say. Check your messages as often as possible, we may update your mission log. Good luck Dingy, can't wait to see some pictures when you get back! Oh! The Cuff has a camera function! Use it liberally! End coms!" Camera? Does this thing have a camera? What doesn't this thing do? I pointed my hoof at a nearby rock and made a 'bang sound' with my mouth and was shocked to see a blue light exit the end of my hoof and begin illuminating the rock line by line. "NO! Shit!" I shouted but my fears of exploding a rock were silenced by a little voice coming from my arm. "Scanning complete. Igneous. 88% Granite, 12% Scoria. Common rock found in north eastern Equestia. Possible age: four billion years. Do you wish to log this scan?" The cuff asked as yes or no popped up on the screen. I tapped yes to see what would happen but I was saddened to find out that nothing cool happened at all. It just saved it. The next hour of trotting went on without much new ground being broken beyond me scanning everything in sight. This had to be the coolest gadget I had ever had the fun of playing with. Rocks, trees, the road itself... I found a function around round the fifth rock in a row that allowed me to speed scan things with a brief description of what it was and what it was made of followed by a fast save. I could scan 15 things a minute like this. If nothing else came from my fun, maybe the data would help Egress somehow. By the time I was nearing my destination the woods were beginning to thicken to the point where I could barely make progress. I was relieved when the on-board pedometer beeped and I had to turn around. I was nearly to a cliff. The more I traveled in that direction, the more I was sure that the road I was standing on and the road I knew from memory were the same road. I had been heading out of town by my best summation and arrived somewhere near where the dump used to be. Maybe they terraformed it at some point and made a park out of it or added it on to the sparse forest that was being logged at the time to supplement the loss of growth. Either way, the direction they took with the matter was more than ok with me. More trees, less disease! By the time I had made it back to the kicked-out patch of dirt where I found the stream I had trotted nearly 2.1 miles and scanned about a thousand things. This was turning into nothing more than a trot through the woods after all. The only thing that I could call out of place was the lack of small town Equestria I was used to seeing on the other side of the dump and the complete lack of stumps that used to line the road way from over logging. It was weird not seeing them anymore after so long of lamenting them, they had been there since I was a filly. Another odd point was the fact that many of the trees I was seeing were far older than just ten years old. Most of them were fully matured and some were nearing ready to fall down. I chalked it up to transplantation as stump removal was part of that process and explained away the older growth I was seeing. I was starting to feel woozy by the time I had trudged on for yet another mile through the forest. No doubt the side effects from the antidepressants I had been given during the screening wearing off. I felt hung over but not weak in the slightest, yet at the same time my head was starting to pound from the physical labor of jumping fallen trees and trying not to slip and fall. The creek crossed under the roadway and led up the hillside to my right, signaling that I was in fact nearing town. The terrain was beginning to level out nicely with half a mile left to go and at this rate the final way point I was meant to reach would be at the edge of town. Wouldn't that be something, if I were that close, I might as well drop in and see Egress and freak her out! They said don't go anywhere I already lived, but they said nothing about visiting the lab. If nothing else congratulations were in order for their amazing work. Here it was almost noon and the sky was clear as a sheet of glass with white puffy clouds hanging overhead. I bet the Pegasi are loving this! No more being grounded due to poor air quality and loss of room to zoom around, just like when I was a filly! Oddly enough, I had yet to see or even hear another pony. Maybe all this change was some call for adjustment for them and they were still cooped up in their cities and apartment blocks. I don't see how anypony could be that way given how beautiful this was. By the time I was nearing the final 2 mile mark, I saw my first sign of civilization and my Cuff came to life with vigor! Beeps, announcements and flashes on the screen as some of the apps stirred to life one by one. Buzzes and chirps accompanied me to the town's edge where I was looking at what I thought was a rock from the township's keymarker. I ran a hoof over it and found a slick green coating under the mossy exterior, peeling off in big sheets like frosting from a cake. White and green blotches showed through the gash I had created and I felt my hooves grow weak as I realized that I was not on the outskirts of town... I was downtown. "What... What's going on!?" This was the interchange sign that marked the split of the highway in the center of town, but there was nothing here. I was only a few blocks from where I live and just a couple more from Spark Labs. The entire city had been over grown bottom to top. I looked through the forest and looming in the distance, like a ghost were buildings that trees and vines had taken for their own. A shudder ran through my body as my brain tried to piece it all together but my heart was distracting me from concentrating. This was a huge town! They wouldn't have just abandoned it like this, not unless something radical had happened and they just had to leave. But why would they terraform this place so drastically? Was it a lash against how bad things had gotten? Did something bad happen? What was it!? I broke into a sprint towards the town center. Surely that wouldn't have been taken over too. The further I ran, the more buildings came into view, but it was the same old song of vines and trees growing out of windows. The forest cleared some, letting more light in, but the tree cover I had fallen in love with earlier was beginning to give me a sense of dread rather than comfort. I ran past the alleyway where Lilly had had her greenhouse and right down the street to Spark. No sooner than I had arrived, I saw something that lead my mind off into a deep abyss of dread. The windows had all been boarded up at some point. Great sheets of metal lay strung across main street in piles, screws rusting away to nubs, poking through silvery metal-like fangs. All the glass was long gone, long since blown out or broken from time. I sat in my place, staring back up at the tall building that looked to be ready to fall over at any moment and tried to control my breathing. "Calm down Dingy... This is no place to have a panic attack now." "Elevated stress levels detected. Administering supplemental serotonin." My leg said. Before I could react I felt a feeling of euphoria overcome me like a wave and my heart rate began to slow, but was still beating fast. Where was this thing the other day!? Forget Equaal, they need to be selling this thing by the millions! I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and tried once more to gather my thoughts. "Ok Dingy... You are in the future, the world is over grown... Why? They said they wanted to reverse the damage they caused, but like this? This is too far. Surely they wouldn't go this far, even if they were to be radical about it. Ok... now what... MY CUFF!" I shouted as I brought it to my face. I looked over the menu and saw that the map feature had found its way to the top right corner and that I had three apps flashing at me. Messages & Schedule, Homing Beacon and one labeled date and time. I tapped the messages first, if nothing else maybe Egress had something to tell me, I could really use to hear her voice right now. Once open I saw that the objectives had been marked off my list and I had a new message labeled "Where are you?". That's right, I had blown past my checkpoint and ran off into town. I tapped the message and waited for the audio to begin to roll. "Dingy. Egress here. You really have us on pins and needles here. We have been waiting for your return for almost 30 minutes now and we have yet to see you activate your Homing Beacon. Once activated you will need to brace yourself and prepare for much the same experience as you had going to where you are. Please don't be hurt! We really want to see you come back safe young lady! End transmission." That's right! Regardless of what had happened here, my job was done! All I had to do was trot back to the way point where I completed my hike and I could go home! Forget what happened here, that is for the egghead to figure out, as much as I loved this place, I wanted to go home. I was freaking out, even with the dose of medication I had been randomly given! With a renewed sense of 'lets get the hell out of tree land', I stood and aimed my nose back down the trail I had ran down. All along the way I was trying my best to work out what had happened, but I was becoming more and more distracted by the buildings. I kept thinking I saw lights come on and off from time to time. I would catch it out of the corner of my eye and as soon as I would look, it was gone. Was it my mind playing tricks on me? Was I just so used to seeing the familiar bluish glow of fluorescent lighting where it no longer was that my brain was filling in the gaps? Was I losing it? The sharp pain of reality came crashing home like a knife when I really took the situation in. I was not prepared for this in the slightest! I was a conservationist playing a dangerous game of dice, rolling them and playing the part assigned to me by ponies I had sworn an oath to hate! Yet here I was, running around like I was a scientist! I was nothing of the sort! This was no place for somepony like me, why had they sent me here!? The more I thought about it, the more reckless it felt and sounded. Who in their right mind would send ME of all ponies? I suffered from random panic attacks with no trigger. Oh yeah, perfect for an earth and reality shattering experiment. I quickly made time back to the little yellow beacon on my map function, nearly overshooting the statue I was supposed to stop at. I remember this statue, I pass it nearly everyday when I go to town but I had never paid it much attention. The bronze casting had been weathered, wearing deep gouges from erosion and neglect backed by a thick layer of tarnish, painting it black. It was a depiction of a princess reaching for the stars to harness their power for her own with a flaming hoof. I had always been told that it was a symbol of Equinity harnessing the power of everything around them out of sear determination, strength and cunning. But now, seeing it in this light, the flaming hoof only gave the impression that we had always been playing with fire, it just took this long for us to get burned. It was sobering and painful even to know that this monument had a double meaning so stark in contrast. I did my best to shake off the heeby-jeebies I was giving myself long enough to find the homing beacon and tap it. I wanted out of here, now. If this wasn't the feeling of absolute dread, then I don't know what is. The icon flashed, beeped and buzzed before turning blue and a warning appeared on my screen. 'Warning: BLST activated... Press continue to launch BLST spell.' Without hesitation I tapped it three or four times... I panicked and wanted out! I watched as the count down began and the spell charged. "Connected to host server... Line of sight navigated... Launching in three... Two... One..." I was enveloped in a purple light that was nearly blinded for the second time today. I closed my eyes and stepped backwards, just as I had before. One step... Two steps... Three steps? Before I could open my eyes to see what had happened, the spell collapsed, bringing down with it a crushing weight that drove me to the ground in searing agony. The heat that the plasma brought with it felt like it was cooking me from the inside out. I screamed at the top of my lungs, crying out in pain, crying for help that I knew would never come. I cannot begin to describe what it felt like for fire to pass through your very soul, but I can say I never wanted to do it again. I was preparing my cuss words for Egress when I heard a familiar chirping, the same I had heard when I landed here. To my horror, I cracked my still stinging eyes open to see that... I was still here. Had the spell not worked? It didn't work!? Frantically, I searched for the homing beacon but it was a steady gray color that I couldn't interact with. "No, no, no! No! Don't leave me here!" I cried as my hooves pounded on the screen. With a flash and beep, my messages lit up. It was from Egress! Oh thank heavens, maybe I just did something wrong, she will know what to do. I opened the file and let it play, my ears ready for any instructions that they might have. "DINGY! Where are you!? We detected through the line of sight that you fired the spell! This is impossible, the Cuff is attached to you, you should be here! Oh luna, I pray nothing has happened to you dear... Listen, if for some reason the spell misfired, you will need to walk to recharge it and try again. The Cuff will save the spell, but you can only fire it off once every 24 hours. Oh... I can only hope you being gone for so long means you were following the orders and something bad hasn't happened. I will be by the monitors day and night, you need to recharge your Cuff to fire it again, I can not stress this enough! It needs to be at a very minimum of 63% before you can even try, but you had best shoot for 80% just to be safe. You will need to find someplace safe to bed down for the night... What have I done, I never should have sent you on this trial! This is all my fault!" She screamed. I listened as I heard objects hitting the floor and walls through the speakers before one of her assistants steadied her enough to end the transmission. " Dear... We are going to get you back here, I promise! I have Jet working on a counter spell now. It's advanced considering we don't have the same data you have now, but we are going to do our best to source out your line of sight and get you out of there girl, just hold on." The audio file ended but I was still staring at the screen. How... how did I let myself get into this? There was no pony to blame but myself for this... Egress's determination she held in her voice was more than enough to convince me that she actually cared what happened to me, but how could she get me back? I was ten years away. I could die here! In the future, alone! I had not seen another pony or even a sign of one. How could they all disappear in ten years? It just doesn't make sense to me. I looked back at the statue in front of me, taking note that the spell had washed most of the grime and stains away to reveal the plaque at its base. "'Triumph over the universe' Erected june 3rd, 2199 by the magical science counsel". My brain ground to a halt, a deep fear began to grow within me that something more than a spell backfire had just happened. With a trembling hoof I aimed the Cuff at the statue and fired the scan spell. "Object identified, 80% copper, 15% zinc, 5% aluminium. Age of amalgamation, 4,104 years." My mind felt like it had just broken in half. If this had been erected in 2199... there was no way, it couldn't be possible, but it was starting to add up. Old growth forests, the topography of the land, the decay... I looked back to the deep gouges in the metal, it would take a long time to do that kind of damage, 4,000 years in fact. I collapsed on the spot, my head resting against the statue. My face went damp from my tears as I started to cry over the... just the hopelessness of it all! I was never going home, I had lead myself to slaughter willingly, just to pay rent for another month. Everything just seemed so insignificant in comparison to how bad things were in this moment. The thought of being homeless was scary, but what do you feel when you will never have a home again? What do you feel when you never get to see your friends again? What do you feel when you set out to do something good, only to sign your own death warrant? I felt nothing, just endless, hopeless and unavoidable death that lay ahead of me. My only hope, was at best hopeless. Even if they did pull it off, they wouldn't know when I was. All I wanted to do in this moment is find somewhere safe and just wait for death. I was crushed, crying in a heap near an old monument to Equinity's own stupidity, over my own stupidity. I sat for hours, it felt like, trying to get my emotions under control. Everything in my body screamed for me to just end it all right then and there, but I couldn't. I was too scared. I don't remember walking off, I just did it out of reflex. It wasn't for at least a mile that I noticed that I was nearing the other side of the city. I didn't know what else to do, so I just did as I was told and tried to trot enough to charge my Cuff for another attempt. My brain reasoned that if this thing had a copy of the same spell saved in it, then it might reverse it and send me home if I got it right. But my heart somehow knew it was useless to even try. I was going through the motions, trotting and crying softly to myself that this was all a bad dream and it would end soon. But it wasn't a dream, this was real and I'm going to die here. I don't know what hurt more, the knowledge I would die, or the fact that nopony would be here to miss me.