What are you afraid of?
Fear.
Isn’t it an interesting emotion? It can be mixed with so many others and we won’t even realize it’s hiding there.
I have a fear.
One that gives me shivers every time I think about it.
One I have trouble even talking about.
You might think it’s a fear of the dark. No it’s not, when I was younger maybe but not now. Snakes is another common fear. If I didn't want a pet snake you might have been right. Falling is also out of the question as I like the idea of skydiving.
Oh my greatest fear. It haunts me hours after even thinking about it.
It’s not dying either; I came to terms with the fact that one day I will die. Its life and you can’t change that.
No, none of those fears are mine. I might fear them a little but not like this one.
My fear is having my friends turn against me.
There is something about the idea of being in a fight against some enemy when suddenly, my friends start fighting for them. At the drop of hat they change. It’s even worse when I imagine that they catch me. Drag me away to their leader who they once swore to destroy. Telling me that it will be okay, it will only hurt for a bit. Then we get there and they take my brain and play. The mix my thoughts like putty and change me from the inside out.
Flip a switch and change sides.
This scares me to my very core. It is my darkest and, by far, deepest fear I have ever had.
I don’t know why. This scares me as well. There is probably some psychiatric thing that could explain it but it wouldn’t make a difference. I bet everyone has a similar fear. Losing friends, loved ones or even people you vaguely know. It scares everyone. Even your friends.
So what do you do when it happens? Your greatest fear comes true? Zombies become real and come after you? You’re falling out of a plane or off a cliff? A snake is right in front of you? An all encompassing darkness shrouds the entire world?
What do you do?
Accept it?
Run?
Give up?
Or do you let it drive you to do the impossible?
Would you let your fear of zombies allow you form a plan against them? Would you accept the fact you are falling to your death and think of a funny thing to say before you die?
It doesn’t change anything. Fear is still there. It’s everywhere. Fear is in every living creature.
Now let’s say you face your fear and overcome it. You kill all the zombies, think of a witty one-liner before impact, get a pet snake and learn to use your other senses in the dark.
Now let us look at these and take step back. Some of these are irrational, yes? Of course they are. Zombies? Pfft, don’t exist.
Now go back even further and look at fear in general. It is just an emotion. A chemical mixture cooked up in the brain.
Fear starts to look like a silly thing now. Just a basic emotion that everything can feel.
But when you feel it it’s all you can focus on.
It drives you.
Makes you faster.
Keeps you alive.
Fear controls you.
As much as you try to deny it fear can still control you. It is unavoidable.
Now we get to something really scary.
The embodiment of all fears itself.
A creature that can make every single one of your fears a reality.
One that turns your friends against you.
One that takes over the world.
The one that can kill you.
It lets you know that you are going to die.
I know am going to die. My friends are bringing me to my execution. They are happy for it. I am the only one who can see what is happening but as much as I try I cannot speak a word. For as I am brought before my end I look and see who it is that will kill me.
And all I see is a mirror.
And at that moment, I can feel my very soul shatter into a million pieces. I am broken; I am about die at my own hand when I am not even in control.
Well, for what it was worth I tried so hard to save Equestria. I was stabbed, burned, bones broken and attacked by a satanic bunny (At least I think it was). What do I get in return for trying to save it?
DEATH!
To think it had such a happy, yet cliché, beginning. A portal opened up and sent me to Equestria. I was a fan of the show but never told them. Had a little trouble fitting etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So it turns out Nightmare Moon was a result of dark magic, as was King Sombra. So some idiot pony decides to look into it and the safe guards the Darkness had installed take over his mind.
Mane 6 find out and save the day right? Nope. The magic grew a sentient mind forming a dark cloudy construct that would posses ponies and change their minds in a very literal sense. Before anypony had heard of the first attack it had reached Celestia and Luna. Another fear come true.
From there it manifested a spell to change all ponies into mindless slaves. All of them bar Twilight Sparkle and her brave friends, the Elements of Harmony. Oh how they struggled and fought. It was breath taking how they held on till the very last of them fell to the dark construct of evil. They were now the loyal guards of the Darkness as it called itself.
It tore me apart, ripped my heart out of my chest then shoved it back in with thousand needles piercing it. To see them rise up to their hooves, only for them to open their dark grey eyes. Everything was the same on the outside except the eyes.
That’s what kept it so terrifying. They still looked like my friends.
As I saw their eyes I ran. Faster than ever before, fear driving my body beyond its limitations! It wasn’t enough, all of Equestria had succomed to the darkness. Love was removed, Hope was gone every emotion destroyed except for one. The only one that was rooted so deeply yet so essential to the darkness that it didn’t need to be removed. Fear.
Shortly after I ran I was caught. The elements cheered at that.
Soon after I was sentenced to death. The elements jumped for joy.
Now here I lie, my soul shattered my mind broken. Equestria is lost. To anger, rage, fury, hatred, malice, madness, chaos and fear.
But even as my body, mind and soul lay broken I smiled as a tear rolled down my cheek.
I remembered the good times. My Welcome-to-Equestria-Dimensional-Alien-Guy! party thrown together for me by Pinkie Pie.
Fluttershy’s over protectiveness of me when we first walked into town. How Rainbow always asked for ear scratches whenever she could. How Apple Jack was so willing to believe. How Rarity gave me a new set of clothes within a day and how Twilight Sparkle asked if she could be my friend.
Then I my body gave out and I died. My soul wandering upwards to sky but not to the great beyond. I waited and watched as the planet died in a matter of months. Every resource mined for nothing. The eco system failed and the atmosphere faded away into space.
After a while I see six bright lights floating towards me. It’s them! Oh yes it’s really them! We embrace in a group hug tears streaming down all our faces in joy. Behind me Princess Celestia and Princess Luna appear, tears on their faces falling past their smiles of uncontainable joy. Even Discord showed up with Cadence and Shining Armour.
It was a perfect moment.
And below all of this a seething mass of black clouds grew smaller and smaller. Satisfaction and smugness replaced by anger and hatred. It grew smaller still. Until the very last moment just before it vanished into nothingness, it experienced an emotion it never hoped it would. Fear.
But now I am dead. Equestria is gone and everypony on it. Their fears have been taken away and replaced with other emotions like hope, joy and love.
But this is not a story of fear or death, but rather it is a story of how even the worst stories can have a happy ending. And that is what evil truly fears. That it will never win. Ever.