The portal crackled to life on the spot, and Twilight resisted the urge to do a little dance for long enough to check the results and make sure she hadn’t made any fatal mistakes. Then she galloped through as fast as she could.
She’d already packed up everything she’d need, and her bags weighed her down a little with expeditionary gear, but she didn’t want to risk anything.
In the end, all it had taken was tracking her through the book, which maintained a steady link, even if it seemed to be one-way. Twilight had written in it that she was coming, but there’d been no answer. She thought about that fact as she fell through, and came out running at double speed.
The place might have been Canterlot High once, but it was greying now. The sky was being covered by sheets of metal, and mountain crags argued for the horizon. The wind was hot against her face, and she focused on not falling over.
“Sunset!” she shouted into the dimness. There was no answer.
She’d shown up on school grounds again, so she knew Sunset had to be close. She didn’t have enough magic in this world to track the girl directly, but she had to be nearby. It was as easy as locating the book.
Except, part of her she wanted to die reminded her, the book could’ve been left behind. It might still be in her locker with the rest of her things while she ran away into the rest of the world. She might find a skeleton clutching it, or something that wasn’t a skeleton yet. It might just have been dropped on the ground somewhere. Maybe she wasn’t really alone here and something else had gotten to her.
“Sunset!” Twilight shouted again when the wind died down.
“Twilight?” the reply was an echo, yelled but faint, at least a building away.
“Where are you?”
The response was like humming, too faint to make out the syllables, but Twilight ran in its direction. She didn’t see any dust being kicked up, but soon a storm had swallowed her, and she ran onwards as bits of dirt and nothingness pelted at her. The wind roared in her ears and tugged at her hair, but she flailed onwards.
“Sunset, I’m coming! Stay where you are!”
“I can’t see you!” Sunset’s voice came from the left. Twilight twisted, shielding her eyes from the wind and dust in a boxer’s stance, and hit her shoulder against a telephone pole. Biting back the pain, she kept moving, slowing now to a brisk walk.
“I’m coming! I promise I’m coming!”
“I thought I was the only one left!” Sunset shouted.
“I know, I did too! But even when everything else has disappeared, I’ll come for you! We can figure all of this out together!”
There was silence. Twilight felt for a wall and found it, ignoring the gravelly substance pooling in the creases of her clothes. As she edged around a corner, Sunset’s voice was closer, like from the other side of a room.
“There are still other ponies, aren’t there? Equestria’s okay?”
Twilight coughed, and weighed her responses. “No. Equestria’s probably going to turn like this, too. But I can build us a portal somewhere else, where everything’s still working! We can both find out where everypony went, if we stick together!”
“...I don’t know if anything’s working anywhere.” Sunset said quietly, and Twilight stumbled toward the sound.
“I need you, Sunset,” she said to the grey sunless haze around her, “Please come back with me. I can’t be alone any more.”
There wasn’t a response, and Twilight’s heart nearly stopped, but then she thought she saw the outline of a hand in front of her, outstretched and waiting.