Well, this is it, the moment of truth. Oh who am I fucking kidding, I’ve known the truth for years, as much as I wished I didn’t. This shitty world finally caught up to me, and surrounded in pain I just started shutting down. I tried so hard not to be glad for it. The pain makes you glad that it’s going to be ending, just so you can keep feeding people’s delusion that not everything is terrible. You don’t really want to die, you’re just forced to fucking pretend it’s a good thing, by a universe more cruel than any of us could ever imagine. So now that I passed out, and I just couldn’t drag even one more breath into my failing lungs, I just get to sit here like a goddamned idiot, feeling so utterly alone, with nothing to do but watch my own mind disintegrate piece by piece.

It’s actually taking a while though. I didn’t think the brain could survive without oxygen for this long. It just feels like I passed out, and the exhaustion overcame the constant, unrelenting pain, until I felt nothing anymore. And then I wait. And wait. Is this what death is? Being fully conscious trapped in an unending blackness until you go screaming mad? There’s no way that could possibly be true. No brain means no thoughts, means no screaming and no madness. Just a big boring nothing, forever, as if you never existed in the first place.

So how am I thinking about it? And am I... am I breathing? It usually fucking hurts just to breathe, but now that I think on it...

Frowning, I move to rub my eyes, but that only makes me pause, then flop back with a tired sigh. I guess those fuckers managed to save me after all. For now. Now I get to look forward to a long life of another month of motherfucking bedridden terror and horrible despair as I delude myself into thinking I’m faced with the end again, and again.

Is that what hell is for me? I swore too much, and now I get to die in a deathbed for all eternity? Meh, it’d be more interesting than the pissing alternative. I just don’t want to die forever, that’s all. It’s not that I want to be damned immortal, I just don’t want to be all...anti-immortal. Dead forever. Immortally goddamned dead. Forever’s a long fucking time.

I can’t imagine what pain killers they’ve got me on this time. Between the cancer and the treatments for the cancer, my life was pretty much nothing but fucking pain. Wounds that won’t ever heal just accumulating over the years, until shit really hits the fan and you’re just trapped in the nightmare of your body failing around you, while those shitstains of doctors just look at you uncomfortably.

I have no fucking future. I have nothing to look forward to in life. Why don’t I look forward to death, then? Because death is even worse.

Pain is only bad when it stops you from doing things, when it grabs your balls and paralyzes you and leaves you bedridden. Same for tumors, and poisons, and worn out knees. The less you can function, the worse you feel, and when you know it won’t ever get any better, it’s just the worst feeling in the world.

But if pain doesn’t stop you? Then it’s goddamn amazing! You can be a motherfucking hero, blowing up shit and not giving a fuck about an arrow through your knee. So how could anyone ever think that a state of nonexistence, where you can do literally nothing, and it would break the laws of physics for you to get any better, is better than being in pain?

I’m not in pain though. I’m... not in pain. How did that happen? Did something happen to me? It makes no fucking sense. Cancer patients don’t get to not be in pain. You gotta poison your whole body, just on the hope that it’ll kill the cancer faster than it does you. And it never does.

I really wish the laws of physics could be broken, sometimes. But after 53 years of no deviations, no exceptions, you stop being able to hope that could ever occur. When the sum total of all your experiences never so much as put into question the scientific laws you’ve discovered, it just feels arrogant to think that you’d be the one special exception. That everyone else was unobservable after death, drowning in the entropy of a decomposing body, but you alone get to live forever. I came to hate wishes in my life, because the only ones that matter, they never come true.

I really don’t want to try to move. Whatever they’ve got me on has killed the back pain and the burning in my lungs, and the liver pain, and the gut pain, leaving me feeling like I’m just laying peacefully in bed. It’s something I haven’t felt in a long time, and I really don’t want to jynx it. But I can at least open my eyes, I think. It’s not too bright out. I think I can at least open m-m-m-my e-e–e—

I’m not in the hospital anymore.

I’m looking up at eaves, honest to god fucking eaves of solid oak construction, a warm wooden ceiling, gently lit by the morning sun. I lift my head, and I’m in a bed, a plain looking bed, but not a hospital bed. Sheets with some sort of pattern of walnuts and leaves...

And my light purple hooves draped over them.

The sun dappled morning is greeted by the sound of a young girl’s high, fluting voice, shouting, “Goddamn piece of shit fucking dammit god fucking why you stupid piece of crap fucking hell in a boiling god damned fucking piss bucket stupid piece of shit god how could you do this to me?!”

There’s no answer, and I manage to get through, “Fucking flaming queerass cumguzzler!” before the door to the room slams open, and in it is standing... no. No.

“Are you alright, muffin?!” a large, grey pegasus known as Derpy Hooves exclaims rushing into the room in which I lay. Because of course she is. Because of course I am. Because some fart sniffer of a god decided that killing me with cancer was better than letting me know about something like this.

I’m in room with pictures of bunnies and squirrels hung up on the walls, and a honest to god pony, a golden eyed, walleyed pegasus charging right up to my bed on four capable hooves, with broad, grey wings held tight against her in what must be complete, terrified alarm.

“It’s okay mom, I’m...” I tell her hesitantly, not sure if I should even call her mom. I’m a—a fucking girl I even sound like one, when I say that, and my throat tightens. I don’t feel like a filly. I just feel like... normal! I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore!

“Okay, sorry no it’s not fffu... there’s something really wrong, um... you’re my m-her—okay, just calm down I just... I’m not gonna die on you.”

“Die on me, Dinky what happened to you?” Derpy asks tearfully, “And what were all those horrible words?”

I can’t... quite... tell if she’s looking at me or not.

“Just something I heard in um... school, I guess,” I tell her honestly, or at least sounding like I’m being honest. “I had a bad... really bad dream. Listen, can I... do you know a pony named Twilight Sparkle?”

“Do I know Twilight? Dinky, you’ve been seeing her for months. What are you—” Dinky’s mom says in what looks like a rising panic.

“Okay just don’t panic, I just... really need to talk to her,” I tell the golden eyed pegasus, “S-something weird and magical is going on, and I think she’d know what to do.” Maybe. Not really. Not a fucking chance. But I’ve gotta at least try. This... this is a horrible way to bring me paradise.

“Dinky, what’s going on?” Derpy asks, looking down at me plaintively, still lying in my bed.

“I don’t know just yet!” I tell her frantically. God damn who decided that my voice was gonna be so chirpy? “I just need to talk with her and figure... this out, before we jump to conclusions and think that it’s something bad.”

She looks at me waveringly. God why’d she have to look so... so affectionate?

“I just need to get to Twilight,” I tell her, “Then I’ll start panicking.”

“But can’t you say anything about it?” Derpy says, “You’re acting so strange!”

“I’m...” I need to give her at least something. “I might’ve forgotten some... things,” I tell her grudgingly, “After that... dream, I forgot about... why I’ve been um... seeing Twilight.”

“The magic lessons?” Derpy says in confusion.

“Right! Those! Yes!” I leap upon like a triumphant chipmunk. “I just think I might’ve... when we were practicing... memory storage magic, I might’ve misplaced a few.”

“Dinky, I don’t think you’re telling me the truth,” Derpy says, squinting at me suspiciously.

“That’s the best I can do!” I beg desperately, “I’ll tell you everything I can, but only after I talk to Twilight. P-please just trust me on this, just for a little.”

“Okay Muffin, I’ll trust you...” Derpy says with saddened yellow, misdirected eyes, “But if there’s anything I can do...”

“Actually... there might me,” I tell her nervously, “C-could you show me the way to her castle?”

Blinking at me in confusion, Derpy says, “You mean the library?”

Oh thank fucking god.

Wait shit, that might mean I’m even more screwed.

Nope, don’t care. Thanking god. I am gonna crush Tirek like a bug under my hoof.

“Alright, s-so it’s... it’s kind of early for breakfast, but I could... you want c-cereal?” Derpy says looking like she’s going to just shatter like glass where she stands.

“Cereal’d be... fine, but the sooner we get to Twilight, the better,” I tell her. “I dunno how hungry I am. If... okay yeah, cereal sounds amazing! Let’s just...” I think she isn’t impressed by my artificial enthusiasm.

“Let’s just get to Twilight fast, okay?” I say, my voice catching, and... am I choking up? God damn I’m choking up! I sniffle and wipe my god damned... hoof arm f-fur on my eyes and I can’t believe I’m—

So the Golden Oaks library is alive and well. A great towering majestic tree, dark in the predawn light. I’m pretty sure I was still in my, or, Dinky’s bedroom a few seconds ago, but then this rush of feathers and...wings, and now I’m here. Am I... standing like a pony?

While Derpy hammers on the library door shouting, “Twilight! Emergency! Wake up!” she placed me hooves down, and I just settled on my... hooves and was standing. I guess the stories were right. This feels uncannily normal. My neck should not be able to bend this way.

“You could try her... window?” I suggest, too shaken by just how fast my mom moved to cry anymore. My... not my mom. God I wish she was my mom. But no, even as I say that, a light turns on in a window above us, a bright glowing yellow round circle, revealing nothing but the ceiling within from this angle. “Oh, I guess she heard...” I say, to the sound of clumping hooves within the building, and the sound of a ... horn going sparkly, then the sound of a lock turning.

Then the door opens, and Twilight’s there, barely lit from the light behind her, saying, “Do you know what time it... Derpy?”

“Dinky needs to talk to you!” Derpy says urgently, “She said she could only talk to you! Something really bad happened to her last night! I just don’t know what went wrong! Dinky won’t tell me anything!”

“Oh my god,” I groan, inadvertently attracting both of their attentions. I wonder how many times I’m gonna hear that.

“She’s... mom is right,” I say, my little girl’s voice sounding thin and scared in the dark morning, “I need to talk to you Twilight, about something... some really bad magic that might’ve... I just really need to speak with you in private, just for a little bit, because I don’t know w-what else to do.”

“Well alright Dinky,” Twilight says in that blessedly snarky yet soothing voice of hers, “C’mon in, I guess. You too, Dipsy. I don’t want to lose track of either of you before I find out what’s going on.”

Wait... Ditzy? That didn’t sound quite like Ditzy.

“Okay, slight problem with that,” I say as Twilight and um... Derpy who might be Ditzy head into the library like a pair of concerned magical horses. “I’m sort of not sure if I know how to walk.”

So it turns out I do know how to walk! Unfortunately, ponies do not normally walk like drunken elephants, but I manage to figure out that much at least. Twilight turns on some more lights, and coming down the stairs is... oh wow!

“What’s going on?” a purple dragon says, also in a woman’s voice, but don’t let anyone tell him that. He hops down each step with a trained grace in his scaly form, which is... even shorter than I am, I guess. If I could stand on my hind-legs, at least.

“I’m not sure...” a lilac unicorn with a purple striped indigo mane says, and... she doesn’t even have her wings yet? “But I intend to find out,” Twilight Sparkle says, regarding me seriously with her deep pools of violet eyes.

So of course Mom doesn’t want to leave me alone, but I convince her repeatedly and soothingly that I’ll... tell her whatever Twilight thinks I should. “You’re the best mother ever, and I love you so much,” I tell her honestly, “This is just something that only Twilight’s qualified to... um... know.”

This is a lot more complicated than if Twilight was a princess. Now I see why Mom was so reluctant about this. I’m basically saying she has less authority than a librarian.

But Mom (and yes I’m calling her Mom until I figure out what the heck her real name is) lets me hobble my way into a reading room, along with Twilight, and my heart jumps in my chest as this is... the best... only chance I’ve got. If Twilight can’t help... I don’t know who can.

“Alright, Dinky, what is it you wanted to tell me?” says a grumpy looking Twilight Sparkle, who towers over me just like everypony will except foals, and Spike.

“Well, first off,” I tell her sheepishly, “I don’t really know if you’re the only one qualified to make this... decision. You were just the first person I thought of, and m-my mom could get just crushed if I tried to tell her. Or maybe not. I don’t really know how serious it is. I just know that something is really, really... wrong.”

I try to look her in the eyes and just say it, and Twilight Sparkle looks back at me with an unreadable expression.

“You’re not Dinky, are you,” she says solemnly.

Okay, not every muscle in my little pony body seizes up at that, and I g-grimace in distress and try to ignore the inexplicable laugh bubbling up in my chest and manage to say, “Y-yeah...”

“And where is Dinky?” Twilight asks cooly. Because... oh no, she thinks I did this.

“I don’t know. I just woke up like this. I don’t know why I’m Dinky. I should be... if she’s in my body, I think I’m...” I say in increasing distress, staring forward and trying to wrap my head around all this. It’s hard to breathe, and I’m trembling as I look at Twilight, and nothing hurts.

“I think I died,” I tell Twilight Sparkle.

Her eyes widen at that, and I hastily add, “I should’ve... I should be dead! They couldn’t... they were gonna do an operation, but it’s a lost cause at this point, and... everything was hurting like usual, and I just started... dying I guess, but... I didn’t even start going numb, I just started... feeling like Dinky. Like I was waking up. And... and now I’m awake, and I don’t know if I’m Dinky with the wrong memories, or if Dinky really is supposed to remember being someone else, or if I’m just accidentally possessing Dinky or or something weird I don’t know! I don’t know anything about magic! Mom said I was getting magic lessons from you, and I don’t remember any of that, because you’re not real! You’re just a character in a cartoon. But now you’re right there in front of me, and this... this is real and I don’t know how, but you’re the only pony I knew who could even... now anything about this.”

“A-and what do you expect me to do about it?” Twilight says, backing up a step.

“Don’t say that!” I tell her urgently, not really sure of how to step forward myself, “If you don’t know, then I don’t know who would! I can’t just steal Dinky’s life! Her mom would be crushed!”

“But what do you want me to do about it?” Twilight repeats stressfully, ears going flat back.

“Get Dinky back!” I practically shout, “Get rid of me somehow. I can’t... I can’t let her die instead of me. I should be the one who’s gone! A-all I remember is pain and it’s so fucking good now, I feel so goddamn motherfucking wonderful and alive and amazing, a-and goddamn magical and I want to live, but I can’t hurt her either, so just...

“Just use a spell or something!” I beg Twilight, “Spirit... banishment, or ghost something. Or banish me like a mirror pool... ghost. Or or... find Dinky’s soul and g-get rid of mine because I–I’m just a worthless fucking dying man who doesn’t deserve this or anything. I–I’m a horrible person, and Dinky deserves this way more than I do. Please Twilight... your world is a paradise to me, but I can’t let her fucking die, just so that I get to live!”

That’s about as far as I get before Derp-Mom or whoever busts in the door and attacks me, easily breaking my neck with a quick twist of her—wait, is she hugging me? Why is she hugging me?

The answer I would come to learn is that Dinky’s mom is the best pony, hands down.