I didn’t really know if I was the original Sunset, or just the latest one. It was a funny kind of thought to think, to be honest, even though I guess there used to be another of me in the human world. In an itchy kind of way I felt like I’d died before, but I couldn’t confirm it, and I never remembered the details. Sometimes I was a little grateful I didn’t have to explain this to anybody else.
The portal wasn’t ever going to open to Equestria. I figured we’d been decoupled like train cars, but whatever happened, I knew there wouldn’t be a way out. There would’ve been escapes to somewhere if I still had magic, but without my friends that was bust. I was just... alone.
Yes, alone. It felt better to admit it than let it hold power over me. I’d been friendless and unnoticed before, and back then this might not have hurt me as much. Maybe I’d have scoured the whole planet for magic, and engineered a way out thirty years after I started looking. I didn’t have that kind of ambition any more. I wasn’t a supervillain, I was a high-schooler, and…
And I was okay with that.
It was important to hold on to the things that mattered, the memories of friendship that I got to keep. But it was equally important to take the only course of action available, and not to mope around for years waiting for a rescue that wouldn’t come. I’d given up on signalling with the journal after the fourth try, and I’d checked as much of the surrounding area as was reasonable, but now the electricity and the internet had gone out, and there was no way there were people out there. Searching around would’ve been childish, like looking for something you’d lost in all the same places in case it showed up.
If the portal was here, maybe I was supposed to break it. Maybe that would destroy me, or maybe it would set me free. Whatever the outcome, I’d accept it.
I flipped through my phone’s photo albums until I found the right picture. The selfie Rarity had taken during the slumber party, that week the Dazzlings had taken over the school. I felt old for thinking it, but if I had one regret, it’s that I wished I’d taken more pictures.
I set it down in the grass, and hefted the sledgehammer over my shoulder.