//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Alone in the Dark // Story: Actually, I'm Dead // by Magenta Cat //------------------------------// Trixie is lying down in her bed. It’s not really her bed, or at least it doesn’t feel it like it. It’s Twilight’s spare bed, in Twilight’s basement, under Twilight’s house. Trixie mentally cringes at the thought of how little she owns right now. She remembers a foreign bat pony saying that poor ponies have ‘no soil to fall dead over’. Trixie smiles at the irony present. Her attempt is met with failure. Trixie’s face doesn’t move. Trixie tries to open her eyes to see what’s happening, but her eyelid refuse to follow along. Trixie tries again, this time also trying also to get up from her resting pose, but the stillness of the basement remains undisturbed. Not a single hair on her hide shifts. Trixie’s pale and thin body doesn’t move anymore. Trixie tries to call for help, but of course her lungs are empty and her vocal cords are unresponsive. Her only resource left is to pay attention and hear around her, hoping for Twilight or Spike to come down and find her. That’s the moment when Trixie realizes that the world around her has become completely silent. Or more likely, her ears aren’t working either. Now Trixie is truly scared. Even if she has lost most of her senses of touch, taste, and smell, she had always been able to hear and until recently see the world. She was still able to move, she was still a part of the world. Yet now here she is; already six hooves under a tree, locked in a blackness that seems worse than death. If Trixie could, she would laugh at how, at least, her tribe’s tradition was honored in a way. Sure, it wasn’t a blackberry bush, but Trixie being Trixie, a full oak tree was fitting. The small moment of comedy doesn’t last as Trixie realizes she’s now trapped inside a dead body, doomed to stay motionless and alone for eternity, never dying, never being truly at peace. Trixie’s mind gets darker by the second, as the past mistakes that drove her to this sorrowful state now haunt her. Trixie can’t even open her mouth, yet she must scream. Trixie rose up in the darkness. It took her a moment to remember it, but she was back in that hospital room she promised to never visit again. Even with her reduced sensitivity, the scare of the nightmare made her scream… without making any real sound. There was no air inside her lungs to make her cords vibrate. Nicely done, Lulamoon, she thought. Not even a second awake and you’ve already reminded yourself you’re not a pony anymore. Trixie sat on the bed, tightly hugging her hindlegs with the front ones. She was scared. Alone, in the darkness of her own blindness, Trixie could only feel fear. “I can see you’re awake,” a motherly voice murmur from her right. Trixie turned her head out of instinct towards the sound. “Calm, I’m here to help you, like I promised I would.” Like the doctors, Celestia's voice projected reassurance and comfort. Unlike the doctors, Trixie actually believed it. “Yo-your majesty.” Trixie quickly let her hind legs go and sat up straight for her visitor. “Trixie regrets you had to see her in a state like this.” She pointed her both front hooves at her face and chest. She wasn’t wearing Rarity’s outfit anymore. There was no point in showing colors she couldn’t see, in hiding what she had become. That’s why she also had insisted her blackened eyes be covered by bandages. “You don’t need to apologize, my little pony.” Trixie could hear Celestia’s hooves getting closer to her bed. “It is I who failed to help you in time and now you paid the price for it.” Trixie felt how the motherly tone began to turn remorseful. “I’m sorry.” “What, no!” Trixie couldn’t help herself from interrupting. “It is I, Trixie, who is to fault over all of this.” Even if she couldn’t see, Trixie’s hoof placed itself over the Amulet encrusted in her chest with a fearful precision. “Trixie brought this to herself, now I’m paying her sin--” Again, she forgot to take enough air and her lungs were empty. Trixie forced the air back, but when she was about to release it to speak, an unusually big hoof placed itself softly over her snout. “My young mare, the time and place for placing blames is not now.” Trixie noted how the tone was getting assuring again. “If we dwell only on the past it prevents us from recognizing the present or dealing with the future. At this moment we have to deal with the matter at hoof. We need to find a way to bring back your sight.” The hoof over Trixie’s snout moved slowly towards the bandage covering her eyes. Instinctively, Trixie’s own hooves stopped the bigger one about to take the bandage off. “Your Majesty, please, the light.” Trixie tried not to sound like she was pleading, struggling to find the right words. “It hurts,” she ended up whispering. “Everything is fine, Trixie. I promise it won’t hurt.” At the mention of her own name, the first time Celestia ever used it with her, Trixie lowered her hooves, letting the Princess finally remove the bandage. Still, the memory of the pain that light brought her the last time she saw it made Trixie keep her eyes shut. “You can open your eyes now.” The intonation, the volume, even the wording; Trixie never felt this safe and protected with anypony, not even her mentors. Although Battle Axe was like a mother with Trixie, she was already an adult when they met and Axe always respected Trixie’s space. But now, hearing Celestia’s voice assuring and guiding her, in the darkness, was the closest thing to a mother’s voice Trixie has ever heard. Trixie opened her eyes. Twilight and her friends were, once again, sitting in the hospital waiting room with their hearts in their hooves. Though, this time, there was something different. This time it wasn’t just a former rival turned dictator who was in there under unknown circumstances. This time, there was friend in there, and they knew what she was going through. Blindness. Inevitably, they placed themselves in Trixie’s place. Twilight though about how she could never read a book the same way again. Applejack was holding her hat tight, trying to not think of never seeing Apple Bloom grow. Fluttershy’s eyes were looking everywhere to distract her from the fear of being in darkness forever. But the most affected over it were Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Rarity. They all not only worked on daily basis with their sight, but they lived through it. The idea of not being able to see the colors of a party, or in which direction to fly, or how a design looked was eating them. They stayed silent for a while. They trusted Princess Celestia, who appeared almost immediately after Twilight’s letter was sent. But still, the wait proved to be too much for them to bear. Realizing she was repeating her same mistake from the last time, Pinkie rose up from her seat, internally reassuring herself before speaking. “Come on, girls, relax.” All of them snapped out of their personal nightmares to look at Pinkie. “I know it’s not looking like it, but I’m positively positive that Trixie is going to be fine.” Pinkie waited just a moment, knowing well the importance of timing when speaking to more than one pony. “Look, girls, the Princess is with her now. I believe she will able to help Trixie.” “Pinkie--” Applejack tried to cut in. “And even if not,” Pinke ignored the attempted interruption. “Trixie will need our support. How can we support her when she comes out of that room and all she seeeee… hears us all silent and looking at the floor?” She gave them time to let the thought sink in. “I… suppose you’re right, Pinks.” Rainbow Dash, finally breaking the silence. “Yeah, being optimistic is the best we can do for a friend is in n--” but Pinkie got interrupted by a loud shout coming from Trixie’s room. They all rushed inside. Trixie opened her eyes. “Can you see?” Princess Celestia asked her. All the lights were off and any other light source like the edges of the door and windows were being magically reduced by Celestia’s magic. The room was near pitch black, and yet Trixie had no trouble seeing everything in it. “I… can?” Trixie wasn’t sure if it was real or not. She was seeing the alabaster alicorn towering in front of her in almost perfect detail. “Why doesn’t it hurt?” Trixie asked. “It’s because there’s no light in here to hurt you, Trixie,” the Princess answered. “Oh.” Trixie began to understand. “So, is this how it’s going to be now?” she asked again, but to nopony in particular. “This is the ultimate consequence of tampering with dark magic, isn’t it?” Trixie got up from her bed and looked around her, meeting Celestia’s own eyes. “Trixie…” “First I die, but I can’t rest.” Trixie suddenly spun around. “Then I get to stay with the living but they fear me.” She trotted at the bathroom. “And now...” Trixie didn’t even bothered with the lights. She just looked at the reflection, at the monster in it, directly in its black, lifeless eyes. “AAaahhh!” She smashed her left hoof against the glass, breaking it. Trixie saw how two drops of the black and green fluid inside her hit the sink. She inspected her hoof, but there were no cuts. Trembling, she touched her own face under her eyes. In the pieces of the mirror, Trixie could see the necroplasm coming from her black eyes and sliding down over her pale, thinned to the bone face. She looked away, slowly sitting down at the bathroom’s floor with her back against the wall. “Make it stop.” Trixie pleaded. “Please, make it stop. I don’t… I don’t want to die like this.” Princess Celestia trotted to the bathroom and calmly sat down next to Trixie. Trixie felt the softness of white feathers wrap over her withers. She turned and wrapped her forelegs around the princess, pressing her face into the soft fur of Celestia’s chest much as a foal would to its mother. There were so many times during Trixie’s own life she had wished for her mother to be there so she could do this. She felt the Princess’ forelegs wrap around her in turn and hug her close. It was like a dam inside Trixie broke and a sob shook her body. “I don’t want to die like this,” she whimpered again. “I don’t want to die, trapped in the dark… all alone.” “Trixie.” Once again, Celestia’s maternal voice helped to calm Trixie’s inner turmoil. “You’re not alone in this. You haven’t been alone for a long time now. Just look.” Hesitantly, Trixie lifted her head and looked up, squinting at the light coming in from the now open door to her room. Framed there were six of the ponies that had been at Trixie’s side for the last week. At their head was the purple unicorn she had grown closest to. “Are you okay, Trixie?” Twilight asked. “We heard shouting outside.” Even though it hurt to look at them with the bright lights of the hallway behind them, Trixie forced herself to. She could see the concern on all their faces, most clearly on Twilight’s. “Trixie is…” She wanted to say fine. She wished more than anything she was fine. But she wasn’t and she wasn’t going to hide that. “I’m not okay. This is getting worse and it’s scaring me, and I can’t run away from it. I don’t know how to face this on my own.” “You’re not on your own,” said Twilight as her and the other five stepped forward. “Yes, I realize that now,” Trixie responded, a small smile on her muzzle as she looked up at the ponies she had come to think of as friends. “As to facing your problem,” Celestia softly intoned above her, “it is your choice on how you deal with it. Though if I may offer my experience, dwelling on the mistakes of the past will only bring hurt and regret. Look to the future and decide where you want it to lead.” She nodded towards the other ponies filling the small room. “If you become scared or unsure, or just need a hoof to help yourself along, don’t hesitate to ask for help. Helping is what friends do. Never think you have to go through all this alone.” Trixie nodded against the Princess. A sliver of hope was still hope after all.