“SPIKE!” Twilight shouted as she fell face first to the floor of the shuttle. Her entire body was shaking, her heart was racing, and she was sweating from head to tail. She lay there on the floor, trying to process what she had witnessed. The dream felt real. They all felt real now, her family, her house, and her deeds.

White hot pain erupted from Twilight’s bad leg, pushing the dream out of her mind. She cried out, and tried to grab at it.

“Twilight?” Dr. Layne called from the other side of the dark shuttle, “Is something wrong?”

“My leg, hurts,” Twilight whimpered. Her leg felt like it was being split down the middle. It stung in a sharp reminder of what the monster had done to it the previous day, only this time Twilight wasn't so distracted as distracted by fear.

Dr. Layne swore and sauntered over to where Twilight was lying. “Stay strong; when we get to our stop I’ll get you some pain medicine. How badly does it it hurt?”

Twilight tried to answer, but her words were lost in a whimper. Dr. Layne seemed to take this as an answer, because he placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. He sat with her for a long time, during which the pain in Twilight’s leg ebbed away, slowly but surely.

When she could ignore the pain enough to talk, Twilight said, “Thank you, Doctor. Did I wake any pony else up?”

Dr. Layne shook his head. “All three of you pretty much fell asleep as soon as you entered the shuttle, and I haven’t slept a moment, too much on my mind. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of replacing your bandage.”

“Oh, I hadn’t even noticed.” Twilight reached down to touch the ripped piece of bed sheet that had been tied around her leg. It was damp with blood, but seemed to be doing an adequate job of keeping Twilight from bleeding out. “Thank you.”

Dr. Layne shrugged. “Don’t thank me yet. Whatever happened to you with that monster caused your wound to get worse. It looked like the thing stuck a bunch of carrots n your leg.”

Twilight shivered, remembering the incident.

“You’re lucky that it didn’t even get a centimeter in, any deeper and I’m not sure you would’ve been able to keep the leg.”

“Less than a centimeter?” Twilight asked, remembering the intense pain she had felt. “I could’ve sworn it was more.”

Dr. Layne shrugged. “Contrary to what horror stories will tell you, it’s actually not easy to damage the body. It takes a lot of effort, unless you have the proper tools.”

“I can imagine,” Twilight said, the image of Spike’s body being torn open by a buzz saw intruding into her mind’s eye.

“I will say that you’ve been showing remarkable resilience. Normally with a wound like that you wouldn’t be able to walk.”

Twilight shrugged. “I’m a princess, aren’t I? My entire existence is a biological anomaly.”

Dr. Layne chuckled, “I guess you’re right. Besides, it’s not like walking is something to complain about. You can go back to sleep if you want, we won’t be reaching our destination for a while.”

Twilight shook her head. “If it’s not too much trouble, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

Dr. Layne got up and sat one of the benches. “Shoot.”

Twilight sighed, and explained to Dr. Layne the various Dreams she had experienced since waking up in Sleipnir. She told him about her family, what she had done to her friends, the Goodfellow, everything. When she was finished, Dr. Layne rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Well, that’s something,” he said after a few moments, “I didn’t peg you for the mad scientist type, I thought you were some kind of tyrant or something along those lines.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Twilight said.

“You said you were trying to undo the damages, right?” Dr. Layne asked.

Twilight nodded her head. “That’s what it felt like in my dream, yes.”

Dr. Layne clapped his front hooves together and smiled. “Well then, if we get off Sleipnir, I believe I can be of service. I do have some expertise in unethical experimentation.”

Twilight tilted her head. “Are you sure? I mean, I messed them up pretty badly.”

“I’ve been around the block a couple of times. Done things I regret,” Dr. Layne shuddered, “but what you described isn’t too out of left field. Not in my experience anyway. When we escape, I’ll go with you to evaluate them and come up with something when I’ve got all the details.” Dr. Layne winked. “We’ll have them back to normal in no time!”

Twilight laughed and clapped her hooves. It was like an enormous weight had been taken off her shoulders. She wanted to leap from the ground and do somersaults in the air. For the first time since arriving at Sleipnir, Twilight felt as though things were going her way.

Dr. Layne gave her a minute to calm down before saying, “There are a few things we need to get through first. Right now our biggest concern is getting out of Sleipnir alive.”

Twilight swallowed. “Right, how do we do that?”

“Same as before, get to the reality warp, and get the hell out of here. Only thing that’s changed is that now I’m sure where it is. Assuming that what happened yesterday also happened to the rest of the station, we could search for years and not find it. That, and might very well be heading for our doom.”

“What do you mean?”

Dr. Layne chuckled. “I mean that the Administrator wanted you to board this shuttle so that he could kill you. Remember?”

Twilight’s stomach sank. Deciding that she didn’t want to think about what the Administrator had in store for them, she said, “I’m starting to feel a little drowsy. I think I’ll lie down for a minute.”

Dr. Layne nodded and helped Twilight onto the shuttle bench , where she sat her head down on her satchel, closed her eyes, and tried not to think about what would come.