//------------------------------// // Door // Story: Room // by AstralMouse //------------------------------// "If you're reading this, I'm sorry I did this to you," I say aloud, finishing the longest journal entry so far. "Signed, Number Forty." Below her signature, she drew her dress. It's shaded and colored in both ink and her own blood, probably obtained with a few pokes from the pins she found at the corkboard. I can't deny that it's a beautiful design. It's a real shame that it can never leave this horrible place. It's doomed to be forgotten, just like her, and just like me. Looking again at the signature, I note that it only took forty days for the room to get that big. That is, if all the other Raritys even wrote in the journal. I'm sure some of them rushed headlong through the door without even stopping to read the note. I turn the page to read the next Rarity’s entry. It simply says I can't do this, and I see my own name signed all over the page, like I was practicing or hyping myself up for signing the note. As for the note itself, there is indeed an X with a line next to it. On the line is a single, shakily-drawn 'R' smudged by what must have been tears. Seems she couldn't go through with it. After that, from Forty-two, a confident Yes, I can do this. This page is full of drawings of dresses, in multiple colors that imply she somehow found the supply shelf. Each one is just as beautiful and creative as Forty's. The next few pages have more designs that a distant part of me weeps for, knowing they will stay here forever. And after that, the next page is blank. Seems I’m Forty-three, then. I take off my saddlebags, sewn from bed sheets and full of various things I've found or made. Forty was the only one to write such a full account. And what a fool she was, ending on such a positive note. Surely, she should have known how terrible the next forty days would be? And after that? A year? A lifetime? Trying to imagine my own experiences but tenfold leaves my head spinning. A hundredfold? More? How much bigger could this place get? My own, now, feels larger than Equestria. She didn't know how good she had it. How lucky she was to have a direct line to the wall. How much smaller the room was for her. I spent days at the bed, scouting and preparing, before I left. And when I did, after blindly walking for several days more, I found the bed again. She was so lucky. I didn't get the sunbeam. The time I spent wandering the empty wasteland is impossible to be sure of, but it had to have been months. Maybe a year. My memory of it is such a blur. Of counting steps, of mentally designing dresses, of giving names and stories to individual strands of my own mane until I was half bald and surely ugly as sin. The tears I shed and the hopelessness I suffered in that place were not something I can endure again. By the time I found the wall, I had already been hallucinating things on the horizon. Ponies, buildings, colors and lights. It took me longer than it should have to realize that this time, it was real. Forty never had that problem. She didn't spend an eternity lost, and a second eternity following the wall. She never dug into it, only to find more layers of plaster and boards. She never spent a week digging, and digging, and digging, until her hooves were raw and her horn was a lightning rod of pain, for a meager few meters of tunnel that led nowhere. She never found the floor beneath the floor, or the floor beneath that one, endlessly recurring just like the wall. She never tried starting a fire that quickly spread and filled the air with awful, choking fumes. She never found out, the hard way, that I'm immortal here. Or how torturously painful fire can be. What would have happened if I was buried in my tunnel? Trapped for eternity? I already know I can't die here from asphyxiation or burns. But what about old age? The thought makes me shiver. Or, if not that, waiting an eternity for the curse's magic to run out? Would I eventually die in the real world if I could never escape this one? Life outside of here must go on somehow. Would it eventually just, poof, disappear, taking me with it? I can't take that chance. I just couldn't do that to my friends or my sister. Forty-one may have struggled to sign her name, but I'm all out of tears to shed. I'm not just doing this for me, but for Sweetie Belle. She needs her sister. Besides, whoever gets the curse will have it easy at first. Surely, they'll pass it on before it gets this bad. Yeah. They won't put it off for as long as I have, over some silly devotion to an element of harmony. It might even be fun for a while like it was for me. And they get to feel more well rested. If anything, I'm doing them a favor. “For you, Sweetie Belle,” I say. I pick up the quill, ignoring the journal, and in a swift motion, I sign my name on the note. "Well," I say as I finish. There's a mix of dread and relief swirling through my head. Despite my attempts to rationalize my choice, it weighs on me. "That's that, then." The note fades away. The journal does, too. My bedroom door opens, showing me a hallway that I hardly even recognize. I find myself stepping toward it, unable to stop. I want so badly to forget. I want to never see this place again. I want to be my old self again. I want to see other ponies. I want to get away from the pain, the loneliness, the horrible silence... ...I want pancakes. Sweetie Belle's door is closed, meaning she's still asleep. I rub the last bit of sleep from my eyes and head down to the kitchen. Using my magic, I mix up the batter, humming cheerfully. The smell of breakfast cooking never fails to wake her up. And, sure enough, just as the first few are done, she shows up, yawning. "Good morning, Sweetie," I say. "Pancakes?" "Yeah!" she says, scurrying over to retrieve her favorite blueberry syrup. "How'd you sleep?" I ask, loading a plate with three golden-brown pancakes. "Fine. Actually, even better than usual," she says cheerily. I laugh. "Maybe my natural talent for good beauty sleep is rubbing off on you." "Froffly," she says with a mouthful of pancake. I smile. Thinking on it, I realize I actually didn't sleep quite as well as I have been for the last couple months or so. Well, maybe I really did pass on the restful sleep bug to her. I flip my own pancakes over and giggle at the playful thought. If so, that's good. Sweetie Belle really deserves it.