Rainbow Dash woke up. It was dark. Cold too, but not the kind of cold she normally associated with the word. This was a deep cold, a chill but far off – the sensation of lost warmth more than actual freezing temperature.

That was alright. It didn’t feel so bad. If that was the price of being dead for a while, well, big whoop. Death was sort of overrated if all there was to it was being cold.

But it was also dark. Important fact, that. Rainbow Dash tried to sit up but couldn’t.

She was stuck. Dash could hardly move her body – there was something hard above her, something in her way.

Stuck. In…a box? No.

A coffin.

Panic suddenly infused Rainbow Dash’s mind. Stuck. She was. Stuck.

Movement is as natural to a pegasus as a horn is to a unicorn. Rainbow Dash had lived her entire life with the freedom of the skies around her. She wasn’t afraid – she was never afraid – but she had never experienced being stuck like this.

No, not stuck.

Buried.

“H-hey!” Rainbow Dash had trouble saying the words at first. She had to cough up something in her lungs, and then remember to take a breath. Odd. She had to remember to breathe? But there was not time to think about that.

“Hey!” Dash shouted again. “Hey! Can anypony hear me?”

No response. Dash pounded on the coffin again, and then harder. “Hey! Let me out! Help!”

The earth was silent. Rainbow Dash screamed and beat at the coffin.

“Let me out! Somepony! Please!”

But no one came.

----

I think I stayed in there for three days. Three long days filled with silence and me hammering on the coffin’s lid, begging to be let out. But of course, I was buried, and buried deep. You don’t want animals digging up coffins, so I was under at least ten feet of dirt. And decomposing. Remember, I was dead. The worst part was that when I stopped to listen, I could hear the worms gnawing in the darkness.

Eventually I broke out of the coffin. Desperation and not feeling pain helps a lot in that respect. I broke my hooves on the wood, and then my bones. But even the best-made coffins break after you hit them long enough. After that, I dug upwards to the surface. It took me an entire day, squirming through the mud and dirt. But it was better than the coffin. And eventually, I reached the sky.

I remember breaking through the topsoil, reaching up and not feeling any more dirt around me. I poked my head out of the ground like a weird turnip, and then I saw the sky. Well, I saw the clouds. It was raining. Apparently when Ponyville’s weathermare dies, the weather doesn’t get tended to properly. Fancy that.

But rain or no rain, I was so happy to be out in the open I could have cried. I tried, but crying is something only the living can do.

I guess I didn’t realize I was dead at the time. I mean, sure, I knew I was dead, but knowing isn’t the same as knowing. But regardless of what I’d been through, regardless of the pain and madness I endured in that small coffin, one thing had brought me back from the grave and it consumed my every thought.

My friends. I wanted to see them again.

It wasn’t even conscious. I just started walking towards Ponyville from my grave, shedding the earth and worms with every step.

That was my first mistake. And it was a pretty bone-headed mistake too, right up there with the worst of egghead mistakes. I just skipped, well, dragged myself really, into Ponyville expecting everything to be like normal. I guess I kinda forgot I was dead, but y’know, when you’re dead it’s pretty obvious. To other ponies, at least.

----

Fluttershy ran. In the cover of the night, she ran down the small dirt road leading from her cottage to Ponyville. The moon tonight was obscured by the clouds – another of the many problems with Ponyville’s weather after Rainbow Dash’s death.

Without their fastest, if laziest, member, the weather pony team was unable to effectively manage Ponyville’s climate, leading to flash floods, sudden droughts, and cloudy skies on what should be clear nights.

But that was the least of Fluttershy’s concerns. Bereft of any light to see by, she smacked into small shrubs as she ran, tripped over tree roots and rocks, but kept running, galloping as fast as she could to make it to Ponyville. She didn’t stop, even when she cut herself on a low-hanging tree branch, or even when she struck a tree hard enough to bruise. She had to run, and only run.

Because she was being chased.

It had come out of the night soundlessly. No, that wasn’t right. It had appeared with a lot of sounds, smashing into her cottage door and trying to batter it down. But it had made no sounds, no actual noises aside from its clumsy movement. Even a Timberwolf, terrifying as the beasts were, would have alerted Fluttershy and her animals by its breathing, its terrible howling, and growls. But this creature was silent, and it had chased Fluttershy the last five miles as she ran for safety.

It did not seem to care about the other animals. Angel and the other animals had evacuated to safety without attracting its attention, but they hadn’t been able to slow it down, either. The smaller creatures had tried to buy Fluttershy time as she fled out the back door of her cottage. She had heard them try to distract the monster, scream in horror, and then flee.

She hoped they weren’t hurt, or…dead. Fluttershy had never worried about her friends dying, at least, not violently. All animals died of old age, but she’d seldom worried they’d be hurt by anything else. She had believed in their safety, believed in the magic of her friendship that would keep them alive. But that belief had shattered and crumbled to dust with the death of one of her friends.

Now Fluttershy didn’t believe in much of anything, but she did still believe in fear. And it was fear that kept her running even as her breath burned her lungs and her legs screamed at her to stop.

Why wasn’t she flying? Fluttershy’s wings curled uselessly at her back. She was too afraid to fly, that was why. She’d never been a good flier in danger, at least when it was her own life that was in danger. She had to be pushed, guided, encouraged by her friend who was a far better flier than she was. But that friend – that dear friend was gone, and Fluttershy couldn’t fly without remembering her face.

But without her wings, Fluttershy was no more than a substandard Earth Pony, without their superior stamina or strength. So even as she spotted Ponyville’s buildings rising in the distance, she also found that the thing that was chasing her had caught up.

Fluttershy reared in alarm as something appeared on the road in front of her. She turned and whirled around, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a blur of movement. The creature moved around Fluttershy and blocked her from running away, moving with a speed that far exceeded Fluttershy’s own.

The pegasus unconsciously whimpered and shook in her hooves. She desperately tried to unfurl her wings, but she was paralyzed by fear, unable to open them and soar away. And on the ground the creature approached her, and Fluttershy knew she would never outrun it.

She was cornered. Trapped.

The creature lurched towards her. It didn’t seem possible that it could have moved so fast, but it had easily outpaced Fluttershy. Yet for all that, it seemed clumsy, moving forwards in a stumbling gait that Fluttershy had never seen in any animal. For a pony so familiar with the movements and rhythms of every living being, this terrified her most of all. But then the…thing came into view, and Fluttershy saw it looked almost like a pony. And it opened its mouth and spoke.

“Heegh.” The creature lurched towards Flutterhsy. “Heegh.”

Fluttershy’s eyes went wide and she backed up fast. It looked like a pony, but it wasn’t. It’s voice sounded garbled, as if something had ruined the creature’s throat. And what was with its body? Pieces were falling off, hanging loosely like they were broken or…

Rotten.

Fluttershy turned to run. She had to get into Ponyville. There she would find her friends. There she would be safe. But as she began to gallop, the creature put out it’s…hoof and spoke again.

“Heegh. Fluttershgh. ‘s megh.”

Fluttershy stopped. She stared at the shambling creature in horror. It spoke to her, with words she should know. That was her name. It had spoken her name. How did it know her?

The monster took advantage of Fluttershy’s confusion to steal forwards a few more feet. Then it finally came into view, and Fluttershy’s brain put together the pieces her heart was trying to deny.

Rainbow Dash’s corpse, or what was left of her shambled towards Fluttershy, walking in that unnatural shuffling gait. That was because its legs weren’t working properly. One hoof seemed bent, as if the bone had broken, and another leg looked dislocated. Yet the corpse moved, even though it was clearly dead.

And it was smiling. Or trying to smile. Fluttershy saw the lips move up, and a face horribly decayed stretch around gaping holes of flesh.

She trembled. Her breath came rapid and shallow. It wasn’t. No. No, it couldn’t be. But her eyes told her the truth. And it’s words…

“Flttrsh. Iss mh.”

Fluttershy felt her heart stopping. No. But yes. Undeniably yes, but no. She couldn’t believe. But it was so…she had to ask.

“R-rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy’s voice quavered in the night. “I-is that you?”

Rainbow Dash’s body stiffened, and then it nodded up and down. Like a puppet. And smiled.

Fluttershy stared at the decomposing body, looked into its face, saw her friend, and saw her death.

“Oh.” She said weakly. “Oh.”

And then she fainted.

----

Fluttershy fell to the ground, unconscious. The corpse hesitated, unsure, but went quickly towards her. But no sooner had it laid a rotting hoof on the pegasus than something struck it from the side, knocking it to the ground.

Slowly, the body jerked upright, legs, head twisting upwards. Not like how a living creature would move at all. And once it was upright, it looked around for what had hit it.

The dead body saw, or rather the spirit inside it sensed more movement. It leaned back as two more stones shot out of the darkness and cracked against the ground hard enough to send clods of dirt spinning into the air. The corpse looked in the direction the shooter and saw another familiar sight.

Applejack stood on a ledge, back hooves poised to kick again. Several hoof-sized stones stood in front of her, ready to be used. “Get back,” she warned the creature. “If y’all try to touch Fluttershy again, ah’ll kick your rear end all the way to Appleloosa.”

Ignoring her warning, the corpse jerked towards her. Instantly Applejack kicked, and two more stones struck the corpse in the chest, sending it tumbling to the ground again. But the instant the body fell to the ground it was back upright once more, the two pieces of jagged rock stuck in its rotting flesh.

It advanced on Applejack rapidly, and the Earth Pony cursed and leapt from her perch to the ground, turning as she prepared to kick the creature with its hooves. But she stopped as she moved close enough to see the corpse.

Applejack’s face drained of all color, and she took a step back. The dead body waited patiently. It tried to smile again.

“No. Rainbow Dash?”

----

So, yeah. I don’t do communication that well. I’m sure any other pony in my hooves would have figured out a better a way of communicating than running around scaring ponies, but what do you expect? I’m confused, freshly dead and uncertain of what was going on. But I do want to see my friends.

Too bad they really didn’t want to see me.

Fluttershy was the first pony I visited, simply because she was closest to where I had been buried. Unfortunately I’m clumsy in my new, or rather, old body and I keep smashing into the door rather than figuring out how to get my hooves to open it. I guess that scared her.

Duh. It’s Fluttershy. Of course it scared her. An oversized piece of cheese could scare her. But in her defense, I think a strange creature smashing into your front door would scare anypony.

In any case, she runs, and I run after her. Her animals get in my way, but the instant they see me they ran for the hills. And in the meantime Fluttershy dashed straight towards Ponyville. Pretty quickly too – I’d never seen her move this fast, but fear’s a great motivator, I guess.

I would fly after her, but I have no wings. Rather, upon exiting my grave I found to my horror that my wings were gone. Missing, with only two ugly stumps whether they should have been.

But even without wings, I’m Rainbow Dash and she’s Fluttershy. Even my dead body is faster than her, and it takes me only a few minutes to corner her and finally tell her it’s me.

Sort of. Guess what? Turns out vocal chords rot just like the rest of your body, and when that happens speech pretty much becomes impossible. But she gets the picture eventually when I get close enough.

“R-rainbow Dash? I-is that you?”

Bingo. I give her my best smile.

She screams and faints. I guess I should have expected that. As she falls I go to catch her, but now Applejack appears and starts kicking rocks at me. Rude, but I get why she’s doing it.

I lurch over to her and try to show her my face. Applejack’s face pales, and she takes a step back.

“Stay back!” I’ve never heard Applejack shout like that. She shouted at me all the time, whenever I stole apples or took a nap rather than help her. But she was always angry. Now she sounds…

Afraid.

“Don’t come any closer, y’here?” Applejack stomps her hoof and advances towards me a bit. “Leave Fluttershy alone! If y’all want someone to go after, I’m right here!”

Does Applejack not recognize me? I wave one hoof and point it to my face. She sees the gesture and her eyes widen. She cautiously approaches, peering at me and then she gets it.

“R-rainbow? Is that really…?”

I grin. Or rather, I try to smile with the teeth I have left. I can see Applejack hesitate. Slowly, she approaches me, staring hard at my face. But the fear doesn’t leave her eyes. And neither does she relax her posture.

At least she’s not fainting. I smile again, and try to give her a hug. I’m not one for sappy stuff, but I’d even kiss Discord. It’s great to see her face.

But Applejack isn’t happy to see me. I can take a hint, and I notice the way she draws back in fear, begins dry-heaving, and starts screaming at me.

“No.” Applejack says suddenly. She jerks back from me and starts walking backwards. “No. Nononononono. This ain’t happenin’.”

I pause in confusion. Applejack keeps backing up until she’s in front of Fluttershy, crouching to protect her.

“The dead stay dead, y’hear?” She kicks a rock at me. I hear it whiz by one ear, fast enough to crack bark of the tree it hits. “Git away! You’re not real! You’re dead! The dead stay dead!”

Not what I had planned. I try to approach, but Applejack starts kicking more stones at me. “Leave!” She screams at me. Her eyes are wide and panicked, and Applejack seems more afraid than I’ve ever seen in my life. “Yer dead! Dead! The dead can’t come back!”

I want to yell at Applejack. I open my mouth, but a stone strikes the ground next to me, sending up a shower of dirt. Applejack is kicking stones at me now, hard as she can. She’s strong, and a great shot. She can kick an apple hard enough to dent wood. If she hits me with a rock, she might fracture my skull. That wouldn’t really be a problem since I’m dead, but self-preservation instincts still kicked in. Rather than force my way towards Applejack I slowly back away.

The friendly neighborhood Earth Pony I know so well doesn’t stop screaming and kicking stones at me until I’m far out of sight. At this point I’m in Ponyville proper and trotting away from her, confused and angry. Why would one of my best friends chase me off like that? Fluttershy I can understand fainting, but Applejack? Okay, sure I’m dead and that would give anypony a shock but…

I remember something as I trot. Applejack’s parents are dead.

Oh. I feel guilty all of a sudden, and pain stabs me in the heart. It’s mental pain, or rather, emotional pain, but it’s the first real sensation I’ve felt since waking up my grave.

And it’s unwelcome. I’d rather not feel anything than that. But my thoughts are only half on that. The more active, thinking part of my brain is trying to decide whether I should leave Ponyville rather than scaring my other friends, or—

But the choice isn’t mine. I hear the patter of small hooves and hear a voice.

“Dash? Is that you?”

Oh. No. This is bad.

I turn and see a small shape running towards me, followed by two other small shapes. No guesses as to who they are. I look around for somewhere to run. Maybe—no. Just run.

My corpse breaks out into a strange, jerking gallop as I dash through the streets of Ponyville.

“Wait!” The filly calls out after me, but I run as fast as I can. I know her pain, but I don’t want to let her see me. Not like this.

But if I could outpace Fluttershy even while dead, this filly is another matter. She’s quick on her hooves and runs in front of me before I can get away. I hear the intake of breath as she spots my ruined body. Too late now.

“R-rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo walks forward hesitantly. She peers at my face, but it’s too dark for her to see me that well. “I-is that you?”

I’m never more grateful for the night than I am now.

Slowly, I shake my head.

“Scootaloo!” I can hear Applebloom and Sweetie Belle run up. “Don’t go near it! You know what Applejack said! Let the Princess take care of it!”

“Shut up!” Scootaloo shouts at them. “It’s her! Look!”

She walks even closer, and now she can see my face. To her credit Scootaloo only flinches when she sees it. “It is her. See? It looks just like her.”

Applebloom paws at the ground. “But she’s—she might be dangerous. Applejack said—we gotta let Twilight handle this. That’s what she said.”

“Y-yeah.” Sweetie Belle chimes in. She looks at me nervously. “Let’s go, Scootaloo.”

“No.” Scootaloo looks at me, and I can tell she knows. “It is you, isn’t it? Rainbow Dash? It’s me, Scootaloo.”

There’s no helping it. I nod my head.

Scootaloo jumps. Her face turns pale, but she doesn’t faint. Instead, she slowly takes another step forwards. Appleblom and Sweetie Belle approach as well, but stay much farther away, staring at my body with horror in their eyes.

Scootaloo takes a deep breath. Her eyes can’t leave my face. She looks into my eyes and for some reason turns dead white. But despite that she remains standing. At last, she whispers to me.

“You’d d-dead. Aren’t you?”

I nod once.

Scootaloo freezes at that. I can see her breathing hard, but there’s something she wants to say to me. I can see it in her eyes.

“Do you know what’s happened since you left?” She asks. “We had a big funeral and everything. Did you know about that?”

Once again, I nod.

“And I uh, I did things…” Scootaloo shakes as she looks at me. “D-do you know about that too?”

I hesitate, and then nod.

“Are you—” Scootaloo’s voice breaks. “Are you…mad at me?”

My heart hurts. How could I be mad at her, ever? I slowly shake my head.

“Oh. Good.” Scootaloo sniffs. She’s trying hard not to cry. “Um. I’m s-sory. I just—after you…died I made a mistake. A big mistake. I-I just wanted to see you again. S-so I…”

I don’t want to hear. I already know. I shake my head and bend down so Scootaloo and I are at a level. Carefully, I pat her on the shoulder with a hoof.

Scootaloo flinches as my dead flesh touches hers. But she is reassured, and that’s what matters. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle hover uncertainly behind her, gazing at me with fear in their eyes. But Scootaloo’s always looked up to me, rightly or more probably, wrongly.

“I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice. “I really am. I didn’t want to—it’s just that you can’t really be…I mean, you’re too cool to…why did you die?” She looks at me, tears in her eyes. “W-why did you have to die, Rainbow Dash?”

To that I have no answer. I can only pat her on the shoulder again. She starts crying. I don’t know what else to do.

“Sorry.” She apologizes as she tries to wipe tears away. “I didn’t want to—this is so uncool, but…are you back? Will you come back?”

I shake my head slowly.

“Oh.” Scootaloo sniffs. “But then…at least I saw you again. Right? That’s something, right? And you’re still awesome, even if you’re d-de…”

She can’t finish. I hesitate. I don’t want to hug her, not when just touching her makes her so uncomfortable.

So instead I smile at Scootaloo. Big mistake. The instant I open my mouth I know the worms have infested that place. They spill out onto the ground, white, wriggling things. Scootaloo takes one look at them and then at me and faints.

Applejack and Sweetie Belle scream in unison and bolt. But they come back, dashing with frantic speed to drag Scootaloo away with them. Even in their terror, they’re still a team.

Good kids.

But their screaming has woken Ponyville. I can see lights flickering on in houses, and hear ponies waking up in alarm. That’s what a small town is all about. If one pony shouts for help, everyone comes running.

Unfortunately, that’s the last thing I want at the moment. My eyes dart around frantically, but now all of Ponyville is waking up. And without wings, there’s precious little places to hide where I won’t be immediately found.

So I run to the only place I can think of.

The Carousel Boutique isn’t open at this time of night. And it’s always locked. But I know where the key is – hidden on the mantle above the doorway. Rarity can always lift it up with her magic, and I could normally fly up and grab it, but it takes me several painstaking minutes to use my dead body to climb that high up and retrieve it.

Even harder is opening the door. My body doesn’t do small motions well, and I must clumsily use my mouth to insert the key and twist it. I lose a tooth in the process, and the piece of ivory falls to the ground, bits of my dead flesh attached to it. Whatever. The door unlocks, and I dart inside.

The boutique is dark and empty. Perfect. I can hide here, then run away. Already I’ve scarred Scootaloo, and hurt Applejack and Fluttershy. I understand now how foolish it was to come to Ponyville. I’ll wait here until the commotion dies down and—

Moonlight shines through a window. Perhaps the moon had been blocked by one of the clouds, but now it flows into the room and illuminates a pony I hadn’t noticed in the darkness. She looks up in fear and surprise at my sudden entrance.

No. Not her.

“Who’s there?” The unicorn gets to her hooves and walks forwards. “The boutique is closed. Please, leave me alone. I—”

I move backwards towards the door and a ray of moonlight catches my face. The unicorn pauses, and I hear her breathing stop. She darts forward, and now both of us are caught in that brief moment of light.

“Rainbow?” Rarity turns pale. Well, paler. She stumbles backwards. “Is—is that—?”

I freeze in place. Of all the ponies, I wanted to see her least. I’d rather be back facing Scootaloo, or Applejack or Fluttershy or anypony else. I have to get away. Now.

I turn and instinctively open my wings to fly away. But instead of feathers I have decayed stumps of flesh. I crash into one of Rarity’s clothing mannequins and try to scramble away.

My hoof is on the door, but her voice stops me.

“Rainbow. Please don’t go.”

That’s enough to stop me dead in my tracks. I turn, walk back to her.

Unlike Applejack or Fluttershy, Rarity only flinches at the sight of me. She walks towards me, slowly, hesitantly, but she doesn’t run or scream. She only touches me, once, to feel my rotted fur and damaged flesh.

“Oh Rainbow,” she sighs. Yes, sighs. I have no better words for it. But it’s the wrong word.

Can a sigh be the sound of a heart breaking? Can a sigh sound like pain and love and loss? Can a sigh capture grief in every shade of being? If so, yes, she sighs.

Rarity moves closer to me. I wish I could feel her presence, but I am cold. Yet I see her, hear her voice and drink in these two senses hungrily. I yearn to touch her, but I don’t want to ruin her perfection with my blighted presence.

But she touches me. Rarity reaches out and touches my face, ignoring how burial and death have changed it.

Her hoof rests upon my chest. She looks at me, and strokes my fur. Once. I remember the sensation, yet cannot feel it.

I long to rest my head against her mane. If I could – my hoof raises and I take a step forwards. But I am dead, and my flesh is cold. I lower my hoof and step away.

Her mane falls over her face and she looks away. The bad thing about having my eyesight and vision is that I can see everything, from her shaking shoulders to the tears she’s trying not to show me.

I want to hug her to me, to whisper in her ear. But our relationship had just begun, and now is stillborn. I cannot speak in any case. My voice has rotted away, and my flesh is doing the same.

My heart is dead in my chest, but even so, something hurts my soul. I have to go, so I turn and walk out the door. I can hear her weeping as I leave. My death has hurt her most of all, the pony I would do anything for. I should have never fallen in love with her, or told her I love her. I should have left Rarity alone, but I didn’t, and now she is alone and I am dead.

My sins are legion.

----

I wrote her poetry in the early days, when I first fell in love with her. It wasn’t good poetry, mark you. At best it was alright.

…I think I called her ‘half as cool as Daring Doo, but nearly as awesome.’ I never said I was good at poetry. But she laughed, and that was enough to make me happy. And from there we grew slowly closer.

Slowly. I’m the fastest pony in Equestria (in all humbleness and that, but I really am. Or was.), but I was so terrified of making a mistake like I normally do that I took every step at our relationship at a snail’s pace. Or Tank’s pace. Whatever.

She was the one who pushed me, gave me the strength to apply to be on the Wonderbolts reserves. In the late of the night, when I’d sneak over to her boutique disguised as a thundercloud, it was she who would take away my fears and give me back my confidence. In the same way, I was the one who helped her get through her insecurities, her daily struggle to create and find inspiration, to be generous even when every fashion critic hated her dresses…

Oh yeah, she had her paranoia about her sewing, just like I had my fears about not being good enough. I’d like to say that we were too awesome to let that bog us down, but if it hadn’t been for our relationship, we might have gotten stuck there. But on those nights, when we shared a blanket and drank cider together by a fire…ah, memory hurts far more than anything else.

I would have plucked the stars out of the sky and given them to her. I actually tried it, once. Um. Turns out stars are hundreds of thousands of miles away and are actually bigger than all of Equestria. And you can’t breathe if you fly too high. And it’s really cold. I didn’t know any of this until after the fact.

And yeah, I learned three other things that night. I learned that nearly dieing of oxygen deprivation and freezing is a really painful, I learned that everyone gets mad if you try it, and that despite that, you actually get a lot of relationship points for trying.

Like, a lot of relationship points. And uh, the last thing I learned is that Rarity knows the wing thing.

I don’t know how she learned it, and I don’t wanna know. I get jealous, and generosity is her thing. But regardless of anything else, I was always happy to be with her. Even if our relationship was a secret, even if we couldn’t be together with me trying to get on the Wonderbolts reserves and her opening up a new boutique…we were happy.

But I died, and so whatever we had died with it. I’m not an idiot. I just don’t like thinking. But I can see what would have happened if I embraced her, hugged her, kissed her, all the things I wanted to do.

“Rainbow…” Rarity’s voice trembles with emotion. She reaches out to me, hesitates, and then reaches out again. Her hoof touches my ruined face, and I feel her shudder, but she doesn’t pull away.

No. I’m the one who pulls away. I step back and let her hoof fall to the ground. She looks at me, bewildered, hurt.

“Dash. Why are you—I’ m so sorry. But we can fix this. You—I thought—when you were—but you’re back. I don’t know how, or why, but you’ve returned, and—” Rarity looks at me, and I see the tears in her eyes. “Oh, Rainbow. I thought you were dead, I swear! I would never have let them bury you if—please. Please let me touch you. Let me hold you.”

She moves closer to me, and I move away. It takes all the force of will I have to do so. Rarity stops, hurt, confused.

“Rainbow? Is it something I’ve done? Please, talk to me. I’m so sorry. But if you have something to say—”

I shake my head. How could I express with gestures something that words would fail to convey? There is nothing to say, in any case. I can only back away, towards the door.

Rarity comes after me, beseeching, not understanding. “Dash? Rainbow? Why are you leaving? Please don’t go. Don’t leave me. Not again. I just want to be with you. I will be with you. Just don’t leave me—alone.”

Her voice breaks on that last word. So does my heart. But her words only confirm what I know. I have to leave, or face the worst. So I keep backing away. I am nearly at the door when she breaks down.

“Rainbow!” Her voice cuts into my very soul. “Don’t go! I can’t do this if you’re not by my side! Please don’t leave! I love you—”

I jerk as those three words hit me. She and I never said those words in all the time we were together. They were unspoken, but always with us. She knew it, I knew it. It was in our hearts. To say them aloud would have taken more courage than I had in me, but to hear her say them—

Oh. Why so cruel? Why so mean? Why have a heart at all if you only want to tear it out?

For the longest moment, I hesitate. Rarity is weeping, tears falling from her face as she begs me to stay. She isn’t wearing makeup, I notice. She always does, but I suppose she didn’t feel up to it after my passing. Seeing her like this, plain, as she would describe herself, made me love her all the more.

Yes. I do love Rarity. With all my heart, and with more eloquence and passion than I’ll ever have words to say. I love her.

So you know what I did? I left. I walked out the door as she begged me to stay. And that is loyalty. It might not seem like it, but what good is being next to somepony if all you can do is hurt them? Sometimes…sometimes it’s best to hurt them a bit instead of ruining their life.

That’s what I told myself. That’s what I kept telling myself, but it hurt more than anything else I’ve felt in my life. It hurt more than dying, and I know that from personal experience.

I stumble outside into Ponyville and I don’t even care when I realize that there are other ponies outside waiting for me. Other ponies, yes. Ponies I’ve known either as aquantinces or just familiar faces all my life. They’re gathered outside of Rarity’s boutique, and as they see me the sadness happens again.

Some scream. Others point and some simply faint away.

I shouldn’t be able to hurt more, but somehow my heart grows enough to feel even more pain. The ponies are all around me, panicking, full of horror and fear.

“Enough!”

A voice cuts through the shouting and I look up to see a figure flying down through the sky. Aother friend. Another would in a heart that I had no intention of causing. But this friend is a Princess as well, and she is stronger than I ever gave her credit for.

Twilight lands on the ground hard. She’s still an amateur flier, but when she pulls herself upright I can see at least part of Celestia and Luna’s princessness has rubbed off on her.

“Everypony, please go back to your homes,” she shouts, using magic to amplify her voice. “I’ll—I’ll take care of this. Please, just go back and let me deal with this. She’s not here to hurt anypony.”

Numbly, I watch Twilight herd the other ponies away. I’m still filled with numbness, but after many minutes when Twilight returns, I can still feel more love and pain in my heart when I see her face.

And it’s in hers as well. Twilight looks at me and shudders, and I can see just how much it’s hurting her to see me as well. But unlike the rest of my friends she can push past it to get me off the streets and help other ponies.

Duty. I respect that part of her with all my soul.

“Rainbow,” Twilight says. “Please, come with me.”

I don’t have the will to do anything else. Not that I would have ignored my friend’s request, but I was numb inside. Death was something I experienced, but until this moment, I had no idea what it meant.

Twilight leads me down the silent street, but I can feel the eyes of ponies within their homes on me. It shouldn’t bother me, and it doesn’t, really. But I begin to realize more and more my own death, and it is a dull knife that twists in my soul. I hadn’t really felt the loss of it before, but like the deepest of wounds the pain creeps up on me as time passes.

Twilight’s castle is empty and she takes me down the corridors until she brings me to an anteroom she normally uses to receive guests. What’s odd is that she is trotting quickly to bring me there. Of course I follow her, but Twilight is constantly glancing over her shoulder. She gestures and I enter the room.

The door locks behind me and I turn, confused. But if Twilight wants to lock me away, I wouldn’t argue. No, it would be for the best. Yet that’s not the real reason. I quickly understand a few moments after the door locks.

“Hey Twilight!” A familiar, bouncy voice echoes from the corridor outside. I start in recognition at the sound of my last friend.

“Pinkie,” Twilight says, and I hear the tension in her voice. “This isn’t a good time. I know you heard—”

“That my best friend Rainbow Dash is back? Of course I heard, silly!” I hear Pinkie Pie’s laughter echoing from the door. “Where is she? In there?”

“Pinkie, no.” Twilight says firmly. “She’s back. Rainbow’s here but she’s…not Rainbow.”

“How can she be Rainbow and not Rainbow silly?” I hear Pinkie rattling the doorknob. “Hey, it’s locked. What gives, Twilight?”

“Pinkie, please listen. She’s dead. Rainbow Dash is dead. You know that.”

“Well of course I know that silly!” I heard the door rattle even harder. “Come on, let me see her. Dead is dead, but I can still say hi, right? Rarity and Applejack told me they saw her. She’s walking around, so she can’t be really dead.”

“It’s her dead body Pinkie. Not Dash. Just let me handle this, okay? Can you do that? For me?”

“No!” Something smashes against the door hard enough to make the crystal frame crack. “Let me see her! Rainbow! It’s me, Pinkie! Let’s play!”

“Pinkie! She’s not in there! She’s dead! She died and you saw it!”

“I don’t believe you! It was fake! Twilight! Open the door!”

“No!” I can hear Twilight screaming back. “Spike, hold her back! Pinkie, you can’t see her! Don’t make me do this!”

“No, no, no!” I hear wood splintering and things breaking. “You can’t make me! Dashie! I want to see you! Please! I threw you so many parties and you never came! But now we can have a coming-back-to-life-party! It’ll be great!”

I put my hooves over my ears, but it’s not enough. I can hear every terrible moment as Pinkie begs for me to come out.

“Dash! Don’t ignore me! Have you forgotten about me? Me? Pinkie? We played pranks together, remember? Remember Gilda? Griffinstone? We did so much together! Open up and let me see you! Dash! Open up!”

Something really heavy hits the door and I can feel it beginning to crack.

“Pinkie!” I hear Twilight shouting. “I’m sorry I have to do this!”

“No! Don’t Twilight!”

But the magic is cast, and I hear Pinkie’s hammering on the door start to slow.

“No, please Twilight.” She begs. “Please?”

“You have to sleep Pinkie.” Twilight’s voice is nearly muffled by her sobs. “Please. Don’t make this harder.”

“Can I say something to her? One thing?”

“One thing.”

I hear Pinkie at the door. I stand up and go over to listen. I can’t help it. Pinkie is still pushing at the door, trying to get through to me.

“Dash…” her voice is growing weaker. “I…I made you a thousand paper cranes. Ten thousand. I made forty thousand five hundred and eighty three, but they took my paper away from me. I baked you a lot of cakes. A lot of cakes. I didn’t eat any of them because I was waiting for you to show up. Come on. Please? They won’t let me wait for you to arrive and keep feeding me with a tube. But now you’re here we can play. It doesn’t matter if you have to go away. I can go with you and you won’t be lonely.”

I can hear Twilight crying. Pinkie Pie is crying too. I’m crying, but only in my heart. My body is dead.

“Please?” Pinkie’s voice is a whisper as sleep overtakes her. “I’ll be good. I Pinkie Promise. Please? Pretty please? I just want to see you again. Dash…”

Something scratches faintly at the door. I wish I were dead.

Pinkie whispers to me. “Please don’t leave me alone again.”

And then she is silent.

I wait in silence, in the depths of a hell far worse than Tartarus, to the sounds. Twilight is weeping, and Spike is talking softly. I hear something being dragged away, and then the door unlocks once more.

Twilight walks into the room, eyes red, and closes the door.

“Pinkie’s asleep,” she says quietly. “I-I couldn’t let her see you, Rainbow. I’m sorry. She stopped eating after you…left. We had to force feed her, but then she got one of the knives and—I had to lock her up in one of the rooms here. If-if she saw you it would be worse. I’m sorry.”

I nod. What else can I say? If I could I would apologize, or better yet, jump out a window and then jump off a cliff. But I’m here now, and I have to see it through. This is the worst mistake I’ve made.

Twilight paces back and forth in front of me. She glances at my dead body a few times before looking away hurriedly. She wants to say something, bursting with the need to speak.

“I checked,” Twilight said at last. “I mean, I would have checked, but you were in pieces.”

“Biologically, scientifically there was no chance of you surviving. Even magic couldn’t have brought you back. Not in pieces. I checked. I double checked. Celestia banned me from that section of the library of course, but I knew where the books where and I looked. I wasn’t going to bring you back, but I might’ve if you weren’t in pieces. But you were dead! So this is impossible.”

She points at me. “You are impossible, but you’re here and that means Starswirl’s theories on death were wrong. I’ll have to amend his notes. I mean, amend his entire theory. Can you imagine how hard that will be? It’s practically the foundation of all magical understanding. Centuries of work could be undone, but your presence her clearly indicates there’s a major flaw in his theories…”

She’s babbling. I want to tell her to relax, but my throat is gone. I can only let her wind down.

“I-I should write a letter, or ask for advice.” Twilight looks around frantically. “Spike has my quills. And my parchment – I don’t have any here. But I’m a Princess. I should be able to handle this myself, right Dash? I’m a Princess. Princess of Friendship. And that means being a good friend. Being there for a friend. But I—I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. I was too—I was weak and—”

Twilight’s eyes fill up with tears again and she chokes. If I held her—no, I’m dead and rotting. But she is so hurt. Twilight’s trying to speak, but she’s crying at the same time, so hard she can’t even see.

“I’m so sorry.” Twilight collapses at my hooves. Tears stream down her face as she puts her head to the ground. “Rainbow. This is all my fault. If I’d only been—”

She coughs, chokes again, and keeps crying. I don’t have anything I can say. There’s nothing I can do. I look at my hooves. Rotting flesh and maggots. I can’t even hug my friend.

Twilight sobs at my hooves. Pinkie Pie lies unconscious as Spike watches her sleep outside. In her boutique, Rarity’s heart lies broken. Applejack sees her dead parents, and Fluttershy is perhaps the best off, merely asleep from the horror I have brought.

I should never have come back. This, all of this was a mistake.

Something catches my eye. I turn from my helpless vision of Twilight’s grief and see a pony-sized mirror. One of Rarity’s little additions to the castle she sneaked in when nopony was looking. She uses it to pose and model her dresses.

I walk towards it. I don’t want to look. I’d rather do almost anything else than look. Now that I know what to expect, I’m afraid of what the mirror will tell me. But it’s this or look at my friends suffering because of me. An easy choice, when you put it like that.

I bow my head and see.

Somepony stands before me. No. Something. It might have been a pony once, but now?

Rot and decay has eaten away parts of its body. What was once vibrant blue fur is pale, grayish flesh torn open. White worms wriggle among the darkness, but the rest of this creature is simply disfigured.

Its wings are gone. I suppose there were never enough feathers gathered in my grave. But more than that, even the skeletal framework of my wings are gone. I look at myself and see a pegasus no longer. But it would be an insult to call me an earth pony either. No, the creature standing before the mirror is no pony at all.

Its face remains much the same. The features are all in the right place, but they too are rotting, a horrible mockery of what once was. And, with a start I notice the strangest thing of all.

This creature has no eyes. Rather, where they once were are only empty sockets. Something has destroyed them. I put my hooves up and feel the gaping blindness. But how is it that I see?

I don’t know. But the sight of this thing is too much. I have to turn away.

And only now does the true nature of what I must seem like to my friends strike me. The screaming, the running away. The apologies, and not least, the fear. They think I’ve come back for vengeance.

It sounds like the stupidest thing only one of the flower ponies would think up, or maybe a paranoid delusion Twilight would get on a really bad day. But no, they’re all thinking it. Why? Was I so petty in life?

Maybe. Death has a way of revealing your hidden flaws, and I can look back and say I was that foalish at times. But this is guilt. And pain. It see it in the way Twilight lies on the ground, overcome by grief.

I hesitate. But then I bend over and place a hoof on her shoulder. I feel her shudder at my cold, clammy touch but it works. She looks up at me and some of the guilt drains out of her. I give her my best smile, mouth closed, and she nearly smiles back. It’s that special kind of smile that you can only give in the worst moments.

But then Twilight looks into my eyes, or rather, empty sockets and her expression firms. I see determination there, the kind of will that you need to become an alicorn princess, I guess. And I know she’ll be alright.

“Rainbow, there’s something I need to show you.” Twilight tells me. “Will you—will you come with me?”

Of course. There’s no need for her to ask like that. Obediently, I walk after Twilight, trying to match her pace. My body feels heavier. Is it because of all the grief I’ve caused, weighing me down? Or is it my rotting corpse simply giving out beneath me? Either way, Twilight is forced to slow down every few steps, looking back over her shoulder as I trudge slowly after her.

At last she comes to a large set of doors. I recognize them. Twilight’s quarters.

“In there,” she tells me. “It’s – I found it after your death. It might explain a few things.”

That catches my attention. If it would explain my undeath, I’d love to know what Twilight has found. Could it even cure me? Bring me back? I eagerly step through the doorway.

And then—

----

Rainbow Dash, or what is left of her steps into Twilight’s room. She looks around for whatever the alicorn princess wants to show her, but sees nothing out of the ordinary. She turns to look at Twilight in confusion, and suddenly she is lying on the ground. A bright flash of light and energy washes over Rainbow Dash, along with a thunderous explosion of sound.

“Wh?” Rainbow Dash tries to turn her head. Something is wrong. She can’t move. She twists, hard, and feels her spine cracking. She looks at her back and sees burnt ash where her back should be.

“Oh, no.” Twilight’s voice echoes in Rainbow Dash’s ears. She sees Twilight’s horn smoking, her face twisted by horror. “I thought—I thought it was powerful enough. I’ve never cast this spell and—”

Twilight chokes as the acrid smell of burning flesh hit her nose. She wants to vomit, but the body of her friend still moves on the ground before her. It opens and closes its mouth, looks up at her.

Twilight is full of horror. Her heart is full of pain and ice. She closes her eyes and whispers a prayer.

----

Memory fades. But the important parts linger on. I see Twilight’s face, hear the dripping of her tears. The world grows dark, although my eyes have long since lost their sight.

She walks towards me. Her horn glows with more magic than any mere unicorn could possess. I’m not sure, then, what she is doing. But she bends down and whispers into my ear and I understand.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she tells me in the smallest voice I’ve ever heard. “I thought it would be quick. Go to sleep, Rainbow. Go back to sleep. Please. You don’t have to be here anymore.”

I try to reply, but my throat is cauterized and my vocal chords have rotted away. I can only twitch.

Twilight stands up. Her horn glows.

I am blasted to ash. Her tears fall among them, and my soul departs.

But not to heaven, or hell, or any other place where the dead go. No, I remain, caught between life and death in the eternal void. I can see, or rather sense Twilight collapsing to the ground as my friends go to her and find my scattered ashes, feel the day slipping away.

I am not dead, but neither am I alive. And despite how much I wish I were gone, I cannot leave.

Not yet.