I was writing a story when it all happened.

The world ended.

First the meteors came, and they ruined everything. There was only rubble and what used to be a tree-house and corpses and not much because I stopped looking. I closed my eyes and waited a very long time and eventually the meteors went away.

The Grave-Wraiths didn't go away.

And what is that? Words are just symbols we use for meaning something. Look at the word; it means something that was dead and came back. Everypony came back from the dead, and that was that, except for us who were still alive, and here we are anyway.

I'm in the woods right now as I'm writing this.

My left hoof is covered in blood. We lost Dash last night.

Dash was a pegasus who... she was a pegasus. You all know Rainbow Dash.

I didn't know her very well, I mean. What can you really know about somepony? She was a friend, yes, and she flew fast, and was blue... Cyan? I hate colors so much now, they're only vestiges of a world where we had different words for this flower and that flower. Now there are no flowers. My mouth collects a lot of spit, and I spit, onto the forest ground, which is charred, like a pinecone steak someone left on the grill to turn to ash in the shape of a spiral.

Ash. Everything burned, but you already knew that.

You already knew that I, Twilight Sparkle, tried to fix everything all by myself. Without listening to anypony. I didn't write Celestia. Luna was sleeping, since she's always sleeping. I tried to fix everything.

You know how that turned out.

I don't want to talk about problems--we have enough of those. am enough of those. "And what is a problem, Twilight Sparkle?", ponies used to say.

I don't even spit on their graves, because the ash is everywhere, and it catches in your teeth and mouth when you try to speak, to expectorate, to even imagine fresh air again. I made filters, because I knew how, and I gave them to a few ponies around me before they decided I was a target for pilfery. I killed three of them after they broke my hind left foreleg--it's mostly mended now.

Mostly.

Ponies used to not die much--or, when they did, the whole occasion was a bit of an affair. So-and-so with white-mane and age-lines on their face would be surrounded by ponies that loved and cared about them, and Celestia would usually be there too, or Luna in her stead (or Cadance or Twilight when the going was really rough) to usher the pony's soul on to the next world. And what, exactly, was the next world?

Twilight felt a small scraping of appendages against her left hoof and looked down to find one of the beetles--the ones that had changed since the occurrence. Their mandibles were hungrier now, and she brushed the beetle away, earning herself a small nip that began to bleed almost instantly. Traces of green lined the wound.

Poison. Antidote. Problem, apply solution.

What was the solution for an entire world that needed restarting? Suicide was always an option.

It was until the afterlife started throwing me back up. Thru portals, graves, and once thru a still alive mother pony who was giving birth. Placenta was everywhere. I think she got stretched apart. Bit of an unpleasantness.

What now? Write her story until the world ended again. Her story... what was the story in general?

The story was meteors. And Twilight Sparkle looking up 'anti-meteor' spell in an old book. And trying it after practicing it three times. And succeeding.

And then everything changed.

Meteors were rocks of hope that fell from the sky--they were puns, they were distinct from comet ice-balls. What was a meteor? A meeting between the heavens and earth. And Twilight had suppressed it all. And now there was no sun. And no Celestia.

There was no anything but death.

That was a bit of a trick--everypony had stuck around for a bit. Then their limbs. Pinkie Pie's face had fallen off mid surprise, and when she hadn't been able to put it back on like usual, Twilight could feel the real concern underneath. But what could she do about it?

She lost her horn. That was the hardest part--learning how to reattach it without magic. How clumsy were hooves? You mashed them against the typewriter and occasionally got a coherent sentence. Twilight Sparkle had done a lot of practice.

There was no one in the forest but Twilight. And that was a lie--there were a hundred ponies who wanted to dine on whatever flesh was closest. Luckily, Twilight was made mostly of water. She would tell that to anypony who came and tried to eat her. She hoped this would work.

"You know, Twilight, a good story needs conflict," Rainbow Dash said.

"The conflict is internal," Twilight explained. "The bleakness of the atmosphere is meant to communicate--"

"Yeah, she's sad, I get it. She's also a blatant self-insert. Isn't that against the rules?"

Twilight glared, and Rainbow giggled.

"Alright, alright. Do you want me to read more?"

Do you want me to read more? Do you want me to read? Do you want me too? Do you want me? Do you want? Do you? Do? Do what?

Not that. Never that. Twilight burned herself with a lighter fifteen times in the darkness of her mind.

The clock on the wall said three o' clock. Meaningless numbers, time, telling us how something could be somewhere and somewhen at the same time. Quantum karmic displation, Twilight thot to herself, death. Joy. Hope. What if? Hmm.

"Maybe we could do dinner first?"

Spike hopped up from his chair, already in 'feed me' mode.

"Absolutely!" he shouted.

Twilight was