Chapter 21

12-19-13, 4:07 P.M.

Jeremy strolled along the edge of the pool, drinking in the sights and sounds of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The hotel here was absolutely ridiculous – 7 or so pools, one with a miniature slide and another with a bar, a hot, sunny beach just a minute’s walk away, and all the relaxation he could ever hope for. Things were pretty nice here – well worth what he had been going through in the past few months.

To start with, he had been feeling down for quite a while now. When he had returned from Equestria after sacrificing his life to save the world, he had found that Luna and Celestia’s mysterious alicorn parents had honored the agreement between him and Luna. He had returned the very night after leaving, so effectively no time had passed at all in the human world.

Of course, the very next day he was pestered by reporters, who all lined up to get a look at ‘the teenage hero’. Jeremy merely grimaced, closed the blinds and doors, and stayed inside for the remainder of that day, getting back in touch with all the friends he had left behind via online contact, especially Sam and Jackie - two people he was actually happy to hear from, if not see. After he went through the motions of discussing the School Incident, there wasn’t much to talk about with them – they too were recuperating from it, but they had families to recuperate with. Speaking of which, according to a few questions hurled his way, his fresh lack of parental guardians was a point of major confusion among the vigorous discussions pertaining to his killing spree at the high school.

He had spent most of that September, as well as the majority of October answering trial summons, getting a lawyer, and listening to a jury debate on whether he should be tried for mass murder or not. Unsurprisingly, due to the nature of the incident, he was quickly acquitted of all charges, and as with all one-time celebrities, left to fade into obscurity. This was just how Jeremy preferred things, so he kept a low profile online, staying in contact only with his closest circles of friends. The following months, he had gone back to school to finish his high school diploma. There was the usual congratulations and such for defending the school, but Jeremy wasn’t feeling any of it – though he really did try his hardest to act enthusiastic that he had accomplished such a feat. Eventually, people caught on and left him alone, although there was still whispering and pointing in the corridors when he walked by, headphones in and ignoring everyone else as he walked to his next class. The whispers never ceased, no matter where he went.

Jeremy missed Luna, Chrysalis, and even Celestia so much, it was like an ache in his chest. Of course, he kept up on the episodes, hoping for a glimpse of any of them – though Luna was rarely featured at best, and Chrysalis seemed unlikely to ever make a reappearance. To his surprise, the third season had started in late November, featuring the scene with Twilight Sparkle that he narrowly missed appearing in, weeks before. How did time work between their two universes? He often wondered. Had it been days since Luna last saw him? Weeks, months, years even? How would he know? He spent weeks attempting to research some sort of chronological establishment, only to be frustrated again and again.

He was therefore very surprised when Hasbro Studios contacted him for a private meeting. They provided a plane to Los Angeles and a hotel for him to stay in, which Jeremy thought was generous – while all his parents’ money was in the process of being transferred to him, he had no idea how to reserve a plane or hotel. Yet another thing he should have learned.

When he entered the meeting room, the table was covered with half-finished sketches and attempts at animation scenes, always with him somewhere in the background. Some Jeremy recognized immediately, such as a scene of him in a gruesome, acidic green bath of changeling blood, firing off shots into some unseen foe. More were parts he would never have recognized had he not been paying attention – a shot of him walking to his apartment, a sketch of him speaking with Luna in the background of some other ponies. He stared at that one for a while – a relic of a time he wanted both to forget and remember for as long as he lived.

Hasbro informed him that they had been trying to draw up episodes again and again, and he kept appearing. Evidently, they knew about some of the changeling war, but not all of it, so Jeremy remained silent on that particular matter. He politely thanked them for their time and effort, and apologized that he couldn’t say any more on the matter, lying through his teeth that he didn’t know what could possibly have occurred. With nothing more to say, they sent him home, and after that attempted to trick him via email into divulging details. While he very nearly slipped up on more than a few occasions, Jeremy thought he had done a rather good job of not breaking the news to them.

Months passed, and the ache in his chest dulled to a cold twinge. The media made a resurgence of his affairs all of a sudden, and after a few days of being pestered he went outside and tiredly pleaded with them to stop, and go home. To his dismay, he was ignored, and eventually a call to the police solved the situation.

Checking online sites, he was equally dismayed to find that some of those same sketches Hasbro showed him had been leaked, but was relieved when they were dismissed as particularly good fanart. Jeremy reviewed the vitriolic comments ‘debunking’ his presence with a grim satisfaction; evidently living in a world of skeptical fans paid off sometimes.

He was also extremely surprised to learn that he had quite the following dedicated to him. Having heard that he was refusing media attention, and being generally depressed and reclusive, a couple intrepid fans had started a crowdfunding approach to get him to an unspecified vacation spot – apparently he could choose. Initially, Jeremy was skeptical of the merits of a vacation – after all, he did want to keep up with his homework, but over time he warmed up to the idea, even contacting the leaders of the attempt to express his gratitude. When the money was raised, he found a check in the mail addressed to him. Thankfully, he had since learned how to charter plane flights and reserve hotels, and he picked winter break as a good time to take a week off. His teachers were supportive as well, refusing to accept his doing homework over the vacation and insisting that he simply enjoy himself.

So, he was here – Cabo San Lucas. He had picked this location after reviewing a few of his parents’ documents – they were a planning sort when it came to vacations and getaways, and this was their most-researched destination, implying that they had intended to take him here. Jeremy could see why: This was a really good vacation site. Here, the tourists only had a vague knowledge of his stunts up north, and while the check-in lady recognized his name, she merely held a finger to her lips and smiled. For the first time in months, Jeremy had smiled back.

It wasn’t that he was crying, or sad, or even angry. Depression was a different feeling – as though there was a void inside you, something physically missing from your state of being that ate at the core of your self-identity. Jeremy was constantly spending his waking hours tormented by things he should have done better, and his dreaming hours were consumed by thoughts of the past. All the psychologists online said he had to make an effort to move on, and find something new, but it was hard, so much harder than he had anticipated.

He dedicated his time nowadays to leisure – reading up on the latest online comics, or manga, or just gaming with a few random strangers over the Internet. More emails from Hasbro employees came, and they were starting to get to him. Eventually, after one particularly smug one informing him that he had to be involved somehow, using all sorts of proofs that he thought tangential at best but verifiable at worst, he responded with a simple “Please stop. It’s over, and it’ll never happen again. I’m sorry.” The emails stopped for a few days after that.

One day, he was feeling particularly brave, and ordered food while still on the beach, like he saw others doing. It was an odd feeling to eat on the beach, but pretty enjoyable, he reflected as he eagerly finished off his plate of fries. He was tempted to order seconds, but felt it would be a waste of money, and instead decided to simply lay back and enjoy the sunshine.

He sat up with a jolt as someone called his name, far off in the distance. Looking around, he didn’t see anyone looking at him or making any obvious cues, so he laid back down, attempting to resume his relaxed position. Unfortunately, some sand had decided to make its way into his bathing suit, and he simply could not get comfortable. Grimacing with irritation, he headed up the many stairs, elevators and sunlit concrete walkways to his personal hotel room.

It was spacious, comprised of two adjoined rooms. One was host to simply two beds and a bathroom, while the other had the rest of the trappings of a modern hotel room – wide-open kitchen, TV, and another bedroom and bathroom. He opened a carton of a passionfruit-orange-guava drink mix – it was easily his favorite part about being here, though he was careful not to drink too much at once to avoid running out. Checking his email, he found a curious apology note from a Hasbro employee. Opening it, he read that they had evidently figured it out – he was depressed at the thought of never seeing Equestria again. While they apologized, saying they didn’t know how to get him back or even if they could, they informed him that if he did make any more cameo appearances they would announce him as a character, or some other such coverup. Well, it was a generous offer, he thought, but unlikely to ever actually happen. He sent back a short “thank you”, and added that his guess was as good as theirs on the interuniversal logistics of attempting to “write him in”. It occurred to Jeremy that he could ask Hasbro to write in the changelings and their happy ending, but he dismissed this. The last thing Chrysalis would want was more attention from the show – it didn’t have a chance of ending well. He vaguely attempted to play some games before quickly giving up, not finding any fun in them. Jeremy went through the motions of checking the few social sites he attended regularly, and after smiling at some of the funnier posts he closed his browser and went off to find dinner.

His plate was stocked with an odd combination of both vegetarian and meat-containing dishes – a curious side effect of returning to the meat-imbued culture of America after a month-long vegetarian isolation from the substance had rendered him able to enjoy both types of food. He did feel a little bit guilty about eating meat when he had gone back to the cafeteria food, but reminded himself that anyone who could have criticized him for it had no way of doing so.

This was also another point of wonder for him: Luna had clearly had the ability to enter his universe. Therefore, why hadn’t she tracked him down yet? A memory flashed in his mind of her explaining that she had entered his universe and planet by pure, random chance. Jeremy gave a slight smile – he had long since learned that the odds of that were truly astronomically against, assuming most universes were comprised mostly of the endless vacuum of space. Luck, or design? was another thing he thought about, but the circular logic loops he found himself entrenched in often left him with a pounding headache, so he tried not to think about that one too much.

Heading home from the diner, he felt different: An insistent buzz reverberated through his brain, reminiscent of an oncoming migraine but strangely painless. Jeremy simply assumed he was experiencing the first stages of the aforementioned migraine, and quickly drained the rest of his water in an effort to stay hydrated.

12-19-13, 12:06 A.M.

A few short hours later, he was lying in bed, attempting to sleep. The buzz was back, and it sure as hell wasn’t leaving him alone. In an effort to distract himself, Jeremy messed with the bedside radio, finally coming up with an oddly soothing underwater sound loop that could also be mistaken for the sounds of dark caverns and tunnels. With this playing softly next to him, it was a little more bearable, but something in him still didn’t want to go to sleep.

Resigning himself to a sleepless night, he lay back in bed and opened his eyes, adjusting the bedsheets so he wouldn’t be so hot. Not that it helped – he was not used to such warm climates. The TV certainly wouldn’t help, either – nothing he was interested in was on at such a late time of night, and he wasn’t really all that enamored of TV anyway.

Jeremy gradually became aware that someone was shining a light down in the courtyard, where all the pools were. The entire hotel was in a “U” shape around the pools, so anyone crossing through them was visible from all angles. He rolled over, but it only got brighter – in fact, he realized as he looked back, the light was pointing directly at his window. As he noticed, it moved away – and then tentatively came back. Now truly annoyed, he swung his legs over and hopped out of bed, opening the glass screen to examine his erstwhile grievance. He could just barely make out…

Jeremy rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Princess Celestia was staring up at him, seven stories down, her horn emitting the cone of light that had irritated him so.

Next Chapter: Chapter 22 Estimated time remaining: 9 Hours, 5 Minutes