I come back to consciousness achingly slowly. A deep, despairing part of me just wants to stay in the dark though. In the dark there was nothing. No light. No hope. No pain or fear. Just the dark and endless, whispering comforts of the Entity.

A voice brings me out, though. A soft, hushed voice singing a tune in a language I don’t know. A moment later there’s warmth. The gentle, uneven warmth of a campfire and the soft, lulling voice brings me back to consciousness. I open my eyes and look up at the face of Tempest, who’s staring over me towards the fire and petting my hair in even strokes as she sings. Her voice is thick and raspy, and not at all suited to what I think is a lullaby, but it calms me nonetheless.

“It hurt…” I say, my voice cracking. Tempest’s voice fades as I speak. “It hurt so much, Tempest… I… I’m scared.”

“I know, chica,” Tempest answers in a sad tone. “The hook is a brutal, evil way to die. The Wraith is merciless and spiteful. It is vindictive.”

“I don’t want to go back there, Tempest,” I sob softly. I feel hot tears starting to run down my face as I think of being taken again. “Don’t make me go back… please?”

Tempest just continues to stroke my hair. “Lo siento, mi sol, if I could spare you I would, but the Entity only knows hunger and now that it has tasted you it will not easily release its jaws.”

I know that, of course. I know there’s nothing she or any of the other girls can do to keep me from being dragged into that hellscape again. They’re in the same boat I am, after all. None of them can escape this horrible place either. That isn’t helping me at the moment though. I memory of literally losing my guts is still way too fresh in my mind.

“I heard you saved Aria in the Wrecking Yard,” Tempest says softly. I nod, wiping some of my tears on her stained pants. “You’re very brave, protecting her like that. When she came out of the fog back to the campfire she was furious with you.”

“Not surprised though,” Aria’s tired, says from the other side of the campfire. She gets up from where she was resting on the ground and fixes me with a glare. “Still shouldn’t have done it, though, Sunny. You coulda gone at least another couple of Trials without having to endure a hooking.”

Rubbing my eyes, I rise and seat myself next to Tempest. Sour Sweet and Starlight are both still sleeping by the fire, Aria is sitting up as well, cross-legged and weary. Aria has a point. If I had let her get hit I almost certainly would’ve made it out. The Wraith struck me as a petty creature, one that was more concerned with causing pain and indulging spite upon whoever it caught up to. The moment Aria began to bleed it probably would have pursued her across the realm if it needed to just to catch up and hook her.

Except…

“I’d never let one of you down like that,” I say wearily. “Even if I get hooked again. I… I’m terrified of it. I’ve never been hurt like that before. But I’d still do it. Even for Starlight, I’m not going to abandon one of you.”

“Sometimes you need to, chica,” Tempest replies. “We’re not all going to get out every time. It’s a fact. Sometimes, sure, maybe we will, other times… not. Being prepared to do what’s necessary sometimes means making sacrifices.”

“You mean letting sacrifices happen,” I retort angrily, and Tempest flinches. “Look, I get it, and maybe I’m just naive. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting jaded enough,” I stand and begin to pace. “But excuse me if I’m not at the point where I’m willing to just leave someone to get sucked into the fang-filled face-hole of an eldritch horror so they can be digested and shat back out by a campfire in the middle of these fucking woods!”

Tempest narrows her eyes at me, scowling as she stands to face me. “Every unhooking is a risk, it’s loud and ungainly, and the Entity informs its hunter when one of its snacks has been swept from its mouth. Each time, you risk the Killer getting you instead, or even getting you both!”

“And?!” I shout, stirring Sour and Starlight awake. “If I have to get hooked to keep the rest of you off those fucking things what’s the big deal!? It’s not like it matters one way or the other! So what if I have to hang? I might as well! I got here by jumping off a goddamn roof so what’s the difference?”

The eyes of all four girls widen at my admission. I don’t care though, not anymore. “Besides, Starlight’s made it clear she doesn’t give a damn if I go down, I figure the rest of you have the same doubts about me and you’re just polite enough to not voice them. I’d rather you did! At least Starlight’s just being honest! At least she’s not smiling in my face and waiting for me to fuck up so she has a reason to dump me on the floor and spit on me!”

“Woah, S-Sunset, calm down,” Aria says, starting to stand from across the fire.

I round on her. “And why should I?” I hiss out at her, feel an old, bubbling rage well up in my chest. “I’m just going to get left behind like always so why should I calm down? You guys don’t even want me here!” I shout, by this time tears are streaming down my face. “I sure as hell don’t want to be here. Seems like the best of both worlds for me to risk pulling your asses out of the fire. You lot get to live and get out, I get to do my damnedest to finally sink my teeth into the fucking void.”

“That… that’s not…” Sour starts but she trails off, unable to find anything meaningful to say. Good. There’s nothing she can say.

Instead, four pairs of eyes just stare at me, even Starlight looks sickened at my words and she hates my ass. Tempest and Aria both look stricken and the latter starts towards me. I recoil back and glare. “Don’t, I don’t want your pity, Aria.” Wheeling to face the others, I slash my hand in front of me. “I don’t want anyone’s pity. Either take me at my word or just leave me to die. I should’ve been left in that fucking crater in front of the high school, but that night six girls lied to my face about the ‘magic of friendship’,” I say, making sarcastic air quotes. “So yeah, no more sympathy for the devil, thanks. I’ll take the cold grip of oblivion.”

“P-por favor, chica, don’t say things like-” Tempest start, her voice pained.

“Like what?” I bite back. “Like the truth? Don’t lie to me; kick me, spit on me, ostracize me, leave me to bleed out and die in the snow, but don’t you dare lie to me.”

“I swear, Sunset,” Tempest says approaching me with a hand out. “I swear I’m not lying. I do care, I don’t want you to get hurt I just-”

Thunder eclipses Tempests next words, drowning her out as the darkness begins to thicken around us. The campfire flickers and I stare up at the quickly blackening sky. I feel it again, the choking and cloying shadows crawling over my skin and down my throat. I narrow my eyes up at the sky and fancy I can see the writhing claws of the Entity, eagerly awaiting its next meal. I look back down at the others, I see the terror in the eyes of Starlight and Sour, I see the fear in Aria and Tempest’s eyes too but they’re both looking at me, not at the shadow. I realise why a second later.

I’m staring up at the sky and grinning like a madwoman.

“Alright, yeah, c’mon you oily stain. Take me to your Tartarus. I’ll hang on with both hands and my fucking teeth if I have to.” I spit as the shadows get their grip on me. “You’d better not leave me behind for this one or I’ll go out into the woods and find you my goddamn self.”

Then I feel it. The hooks sink into me, dredging me up from the campsite. “Good,” I whisper bitterly. “Let’s do this, I’m gonna grab you by the throat from the inside.”

“Sunset!” Aria screams from somewhere in the darkness. “Don’t let it take you! Please!”

As if she really cares. Nobody cares about Sunset Shimmer. Live or die. Win or lose. Redemption or damnation. In the end, nobody really cares and it doesn’t even matter. In fact, I think to myself as my grin widens and the stink of rotting plants and mud fills my nostrils, I think there’s a certain argument to be made for that being the best part of being me.

Celestia knows there aren’t any other good things.

So let’s get started.

I hit the ground running as the darkness deposits me out of the sky. I’m in a swamp and there are rotting cattails and tree stumps sticking out of the ground all around me. As the mud squelches unpleasantly under my boots, I scan the area, I see a couple of posts spearing up into the sky proclaiming the location of a couple of nearby generators, and in the distance is a massive, decrepit steamboat half sunk into the sucking mud. Looking close to the ground nearby, though, I see something tucked away near some fallen, decayed trees… a chest.

“Luck~y,” I sing to myself, even I can feel my grin become a little manic as I rush over to the chest and prise it open. It’s full of junk but, as they say about one pony’s trash… I sift through it for a few moments, not caring a wit how loud I’m being. Hell, that’s part of the point. Ugh, just a bunch of junk… rotten clothes, junk, broken toys, more junk, and-

“Yahtzee!” I smirk as I pull out a full medkit.

Standing up from where I’d knelt at the chest, I scan the area. No heartbeat. No movement. Knowing my luck the Killer is probably on the other side of the fucking realm. Oh well, there are ways to get its attention.

I sprint to a generator. It’s cold, no one has worked it yet, so I get down and start fishing around in it. I just need to start it up a little, get that part there… this part here… and…

BANG!

“Hot damn!” I grin as I pull my hands out of the sparking generator, then put my pinkies to the sides of my mouth and let out several sharp whistles. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, where are you…” I mutter as I look around. No heartbeat yet… “I’m a goddamn happy meal, here, so come and get it.”

There.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

The heartbeat of a murderous Killer, all for me. How kind of them. The beat gets louder as I start backing away from the generator, swiveling my head to try and get a bead on the direction. I see the cattails to my left sway and I turn on my heel to sprint for the wreckage of the steamboat. I can hear the Killer cutting through the swamp plants towards me as I hit the first wooden planks near the boat. Looking back I get my first glimpse of it.

Tartarus spits but she’s ugly. Wretched, wrinkled skin that’s clearly missing chunks here and there. Her flesh is the pallid grey of rotting muck and her filthy hair is tied up in a ratty bun. Her staggering run reminds me of Billy’s uneven loping. Her right hand is the worst though, broken and twisted into a bony claw, that fidgets and writhes.

I sprint onto the steamboat, passing the faded and peeling lettering declaring the vessel as the Pale Rose. My footsteps strike the boards hard and I hear them creak under my weight. Hopefully, whatever black magic it is that keeps this shithole from rotting apart also keeps the timbers from breaking, that would be a miserable way to get caught.

“C’mon you ugly bitch!” I yell over my shoulder, “try to keep up!”

The Killer lets out a gurgling shriek and charges me down, and I scramble up the groaning stairs to the top level. There’s a generator above me but I don’t hear any sound coming from it as I move closer edge around the upper deck towards the lamps, good. I didn’t want to lead this ugly witch right to them. My foot slides along the slick, soggy flooring and I scrabble for purchase as I take a hard turn around the upper prow. My pursuer is right on my heels, the heartbeat pounding in my ears.

I can’t stop grinning.

I saw my target as I ran past the cabin the first time, now I make for it. I hear my pursuer scrape across the sodden deck right behind me and I sprint around to the port side before immediately hanging another right as the stain of red light from her gaze spills over my back. I run past a loose cargo pallet leaning against the wall and sweep my hand out.

“Grip it and rip it, granny!” I yell and I pull the pallet down on her head, hearing the shriek of frustration issue from her a second later as she staggers under the sudden assault.

I cackle as I hear two generators go active, loudly, at almost the same time that I spot a hole in the decking and leap down, hitting the ground hard and flinching as I feel a bit of the wood give way. Rotating hard on my heel I tear off towards the port side ramp. She’s still close, I hear the heartbeat she’ll cotton on to my turnaround in-

“HOLY SHIT!” I shriek as granny bad-touch bursts out of the ground with a wail. I try to stop but I skid on the mud and… pass right through her?

I come out the other side covered in muck and swamp water. An illusion? No, there’s matter. A simulacrum then, I think, as I recover my wits just in time to see the clone pulse and suddenly come to life, I try to twist out of the way but her bent and broken right hand carves an ugly gouge into my chest. I scream again, this time in pain as the wound sends a shot of adrenaline through me and I take off away from the Pale Rose.

“She can fucking teleport to her clones?” I hiss through the searing pain. “Fucking cheater!” my breath is coming in ragged gasps as I round a copse of trees, and kick loose another slatting of wood to cover my trail. “That explains why she seemed slow… who needs speed when you can goddamn blink everywhere? But how did she conjure her clone?”

I rip off into the undergrowth, skidding down low and ending in a crouch, moving slowly as I backtrack to the Pale Rose. It’s a good landmark if nothing else. The heartbeat is still there but it’s dull and a little distant. She lost my trail for now, fine by me. I pull up the medkit I had found and start going through it. Not bad, better than the one I lost in the Wrecking Yard anyway. Definitely some better quality stuff. I pull out some antiseptic cream and gauze, along with a linen pad. Lathering the cream on the pad, I shrug my jacket off and press the pad into the wound, hissing as it burns against the ragged flesh, then start liberally wrapping the gauze around and tying it off. I let out a calming sigh. It’s not great but it’ll have to do. At least I can get around without groaning and bleeding all over the place. Grabbing my jacket, I pull it back on.

Time to find her again.

The heartbeat is gone but no matter. She’s not quick so she couldn’t have gotten too far. I crouch and sidle up to the side of the boat and get onto the deck, making my way up to the generator on the prow. As I creep towards it, though, an odd scratch pattern in the wood catches my eye. Three long, crude lines have been carved in a very deliberate manner onto the deck.

“Wait, is that…” I mutter as I edge towards it. Reach out I run my fingers over the grooves. “That’s… sigil magic. Runic arts. Wow, I haven’t seen that since…” I clam up and grimace. ‘...since I left Princess Celestia’s tutelage.’

“But what’s the trigger mechanism?” I wonder, tapping one finger against my bottom lip. I can’t help but smile a bit as I hear a generator boom to life in the distance. Nice to know those dimwits are making use of my little cardio exercise. “Well, nothing to do but test it, right?” I can’t help but smile a little at the thought of Twilight experimenting on murder-magic. She’s such a nerd.

Bracing myself to sprint in the opposite direction, I reach out and give the Sign a hard flick with my finger. “Not pressure then,” I mutter. I take a breath and yell wordlessly at it. “Not an aural read either… that pretty much leaves proximity, which is obviously not it since I’m right on it and…

Slowly I stand and make a sharp, heavy movement towards the generator. Sure enough, the sign issues a despairing scream and I’m showered with mud and swamp water as a clone of the bitch-witch explodes out of the deck. I turn tail and sprint away just as the clone pulses and the heartbeat ticks up hard.

“She’s back, fillies and gentlecolts!” I shout, my manic grin back in place as I vault through the cabin and drop down to the deck. “And we’re off!”

I vault from the deck to the swamp and tear off with the Killer in hot pursuit. This time I’m sprinting towards the corner, I see a pallet leaning against one of the dead stumps and make for it. I can hear her flagging back as I reach it and it only occurs to me too late why that would be.

“Shit!” One of her clones explodes out of the ground near the pallet and instantly she blinks to it and lashes out at me, I managed to turn on my heel but she carves a hot line of red pain down my back. “Motherbucking mud scratches!” I shriek as I sprint away.

I head back towards the Pale Rose, it provides the easiest mark as I stagger up the gangplank towards the middle. She has me completely read by this point though as another one of her clones bursts from the decking and clubs me hard across the face with her shattered hand. I go down hard, slamming my skull against the mouldering deck. My vision and senses are still swimming as I’m heaved up onto her shoulder. For such a spindly creature, she’s shockingly strong, You’d hardly think those stick-thin arms could pack much of a punch but that was like getting drilled in the face by the two back hooves of a career applebucker.

I’m barely cogent by the time I see the hook. I’d been futilely struggling the entire time, not able to do much more than forcing her off target a few times as she had to readjust her grip. In the end, it was pointless though, and she extends to her full height, which was surprisingly tall since I’d only seen her hunched over, and slammed me down onto the hook.

I couldn’t help it. I screamed. The old bat grins at me through the flayed skull of her face. For a moment I’m afraid she’s going to do what the Wraith had done but a fourth generator thunders to life not far off. Hah, eat that you old swamp witch. Her face twists and she lopes away towards it.

“Well, nothing for it now,” I say wetly, as blood leaks from my mouth. I remember what happened last time I tried to escape. The old stain himself came for me. “Guess I’ll just hang out for a while.” I chuckle dryly as I swing back and forth from the hook, almost relishing the searing burn. “Ah, man, shoulda just skipped the whole magic schtick and gone into comedy, I’m a fuckin’ genius, I kill myself. Or at least I try.”

I cackle again. “Oh yeah, this is gold. Fuckin’ gold,” I am definitely going crazy but hey, I’m running from murder witches in a godforsaken swamp so who says insanity isn’t a fringe benefit at this stage? “Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week,” I say to the empty swamp and drooping trees. “Or however long it takes that miserable claw-faced freak to crap me back into the campsite. Fuck that place.”

“S-Sunset?”

Glancing up from my fevered ravings I’d been indulging in to amuse myself and scowl when I see Tempest emerge from the shadow of several trees.

“Oh good,” I grumble. “Go away, Tempest, there’s only one generator. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

Tempest Shadow glances around, then scans the ground at my feet. Oh yeah, she’d forgotten to mark me with one of her little signs. More fool her, I guess. Satisfied that the coast was clear, Tempest edged towards me.

“Hold still, I’ll get you down, chica,” Tempest whispers.

Rescue me? I scan the area, there are two finished gennies nearby and nothing else. She’s here just to rescue me? I don’t know why but that… that makes me mad. No, actually, I take that back. That doesn’t just make me mad. That makes me Celestia-be-damned, Mud-suckingly, furious.”

“Get me down?!” I hiss as I jerk my feet away from her hands. She looks like I’d just gut-checked her. “Why?”

“W-what?” Tempest looks genuinely confused and shocked.

“Did you go deaf, esé?” I spit at her. “Why. Would. You. Bother?”

“Sunset I don’t…” Tempest stammered, “do you want it to take you?”

I grimace. Maybe, maybe not. “I don’t really have an opinion there,” I say, holding my glare on her. “But you, specifically, can go fuck yourself.” I feel a pang of heartache as I see the hurt cut across Tempest’s face. I continue anyway. “What happened to ‘necessary sacrifices’?” I scoff, “or ‘every unhooking is a risk’? Huh? Where’s your pragmatism now? Where was your altruism when Spruce was hanging from his fuckin’ perch?”

Tears started to track down Tempest's cheeks as she reached out for me. “Please, chica, just… let me get you down. You’re right, I shouldn’t have said those things, lo siento, just let me-” she gets close enough to get a hand on my leg.

I feel a fire burn through me like I haven’t felt since the Fall Formal. Anger, rage, and fury contort across my face. “Get away from me!” I hiss and lash out. My boot connects hard with Tempest’s face and she staggers back, utterly stunned. “Leave. Me. Alone.” I say, glowering down at the bulkier young woman who’s holding her hand up to her newly broken nose.

Tempest looks up at me with tears in her eyes, maybe from the pain, maybe from something else. She looks like she wants to approach me again, glaring down at her is all I can do. I can feel the Entity getting closer. Ash and embers are coiling up around me in the shapes of his claws. Then the last generator roars to life and the Exits power up with a thunderous report.

“Get out, Tempest,” I say softly, feeling the anger bleed out of me. “Leave me here. I don’t need you, or anyone, to save me. Not anymore.” I wave my hand towards the nearest Exit. “I’ve learned that much by now. So go, get out, and… I’m sorry I kicked you.”

Flinching painfully as she snaps her nose back straight, Tempest gives me one more pained look and nods, backing away and sprinting for the exit. Good. Let them go you old stain. You’ve got me now. Your-

The heartbeat picks up for a few seconds and then fades and I watch the cattails sway violently back and forth with the passage of a hunched creature. ‘Bitch!’ I snarl at the shape before looking up at my own predicament. I wasn’t gonna let that thing ruin all my work. I figure I have one or two good pulls.

Reaching up and grip the hook, “one, two, heave!” I pull up and the claws begin to twitch and resolve further into existence. “Shit! One… two…” I heave one last time and- “Woo! KOBE!”

I drop to the ground and snatch up my medkit and sprint in the opposite direction towards the other Exit. Immediately I hear the heartbeat start to pick up again. Oh, yeah, she not like that at all. The Exit is on the other side of the realm, but I don’t particularly care, maybe it’s open, maybe it’s not. Maybe I make it, maybe I don’t. I’m officially past caring just like my old ‘friends’.

‘There’s a friendship lesson, Twi’ I think with a grim smile. ‘Dear Princess Twilight, having friends taught me how to enjoy provoking serial killers into chasing me down.’

I feel something shift in the air. I’m alone. I can feel it. Something has changed in the space around the realm. I don’t know how but I know. The others have left. Good for them. I’m making for the exit but I’m not going to make it. That hag isn’t fast but she’s faster than me. I can feel her catching up no matter how many sharp turns I take, or how much debris I throw in her way. I clamber up over the deck of a smaller boat not far from the Pale Rose. Seems like a good place to…

“What the hell is that sound?” I swivel my head as I skid across the deck. There’s a dull, atonal screaming in the air.

I scan the area and spot the source. Just under the kicked up prow of the smaller boat is a hatch with a flipped up lid. Black, noxious-looking smoke is pouring out of it. I glance back in time to see my pursuer erupt from the cattails and shrug.

“Whatever,” I chuckle as I drop to the mud, curve around the starboard side of the boat make a short hop, dropping into the hatch just as the witch comes around the corner.

The hatch slams shut after me with a deafening clang and I’m falling. Forever, it feels like, I’m just falling through the dark. It’s not the same as getting ‘taken’ though. There are no claws, no gripping monstrous visions, just… falling. Then I start to slow and there’s a light in the distance, sharp and defined, it’s warm and… familiar.

The campfire.

I grimace as my fall comes to a slow stop and the darkness ripples away from me and my feet touch down gently on the dirt and dying pine needles. I hear four gasps of surprise and relief from around me before the shadows peel away fully. I look around and Sour Sweet, Aria, Starlight, and Tempest are all staring at me with shock writ across their features.

As my feet settle to the ground I let out a sigh. I’m back at the campfire. By sheer dumb luck, I escaped the clutches of the Entity at the last moment.

“C-chica,” Tempest approached with a cautious smile, reaching out for me, I let her pull me into a strong hug. “You made it,” she mutters in disbelief.

I made it.

Tempest leans down and touches her forehead to my crown and I feel a slight wetness as her tears trickle down. “I can’t believe it. You’re safe, I’m so glad.”

I’m safe.

“Gave us all a scare there, red,” Aria says a little uneasily from her seat as I reach up and pat Tempest on the arm. “You okay?”

Okay? No… I don’t think I am.

“Sunset?” Sour Sweet gets up from her side of the fire and approaches shyly. Starlight doesn't even look in my direction. “What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong is I think… I think I’m… disappointed.