Who would've thought returning back home after what I'd been through would be an even more surreal experience than visiting—and dying in—the places I was forcefully whisked away to? Yeah, hopping from horrible Equestria to horrible Equestria was fantastical in a horrifying sort of way that I never wanted to experience again, but this was different.

I had returned to my hometown only to find everyone in it gone without a trace—like the Rapture had come and the Good Lord just decided that there was room in Heaven for all saints and sinners alike. I wasn't exactly a religious guy and even if I was, certain prior events caused by a certain chaotic being would've been more than enough to shake my faith to pieces. That being the case, I was skeptical of the Rapture theory for a number of reasons.

The first being that there were no clothes left behind which—okay so maybe God wanted everyone to keep their dignity intact—but then if that was the case, what about the missing vehicles? There were none to be seen anywhere; not on the streets, not in the parking lots I passed... nowhere. The other, more prominent reasons were, of course, what had happened prior to my awakening, how I'd gotten here, and the mare-turn-woman who'd been walking beside me for the last hour or so lost in a haze of mixed emotions.

And then there was that mysterious text message I received. That alone was more than enough to convince me that this was no biblical end-times event. Then again, who knows? Maybe this mysterious being was God. Hell, maybe I really had died and was being forced to play some kind of game to bring everyone back including myself. Maybe this guy was Discord's flunky, working with the bastard to fuck me over.

Return to the place you once called home. You have 240 minutes. Fail and face erasure.

"What's so funny?"

I turned to see Twilight eyeing me with a frown that was equal parts curious and surly. That'd more or less been her default look since we started our journey back to my house, or rather my one-room flat. It seemed me randomly chuckling out of nowhere wasn't helping her sour mood any. I couldn't blame her really; this wasn't exactly a laughing matter we found ourselves in and she had every right to be worried, especially given her own circumstances.

"No it's nothing, sorry," I replied somewhat sheepishly, "just... letting my mind wander somewhere stupid is all," after a brief pause I decided to change the subject, "so... how are you holding up?"

Once we started off Twilight had started in with the questions about anything and everything that had to do with the places we were passing by. I figured she was just trying to distract herself from more depressing thoughts and went along with it, but then she went silent maybe five or so minutes ago. She looked pensive so I didn't bug her about it, thinking she might be trying to process everything, but now that she was distracted I took the opportunity to find out what was up—as if I didn't already know.

"I... I don't know, Salvatore," Twilight answered quietly after a moment, "I'm still trying to wrap my head around the possibility that my world is gone. I want to focus on helping you, but my thoughts always come back to that possibility," she turned to me with a forlorn expression, "even if I'm able to help you deal with... whatever this is, what am I supposed to do afterward? If my universe really was destroyed where am I supposed to go?"

After a few seconds of silence, I blew out a heavy breath. The guilt I felt for what my death had caused was still there, but I knew better than to blame myself for something I had no control over. We were both victims of Discord's stupid schemes but hearing Twilight lay out her issue like that, it really hit home that she'd lost a lot more than I had and a lot of that was even before I came along.

And so I found myself thrust into the role of emotional support once again. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't want to help, but I'm not exactly a social butterfly who can spit wisdom and words of encouragement at the drop of a hat. Granted my job for the last five or six years entailed talking to one person after another, but that was over the phone and in a professional setting. At the end of the day, I was still an introvert, but I had to say something, so...

"Honestly? I'm not too sure," I finally replied after another short stretch of silence, "there's still a lot we don't know, and I get the feeling this mess is far from over. I'm pretty sure we'll get some answers from whoever this guy is, but I'm also positive those answers are just gonna raise more questions," I shrugged, "in the end, all we can do right now is deal with things as they come. I'm sure it'll all work out in the end."

"...You really believe that?" Twilight asked, clearly unconvinced, "you think after everything that happened to us, things are going to be okay?"

"Hey, I may not look or act it, but I'm an optimist at heart," I answered with another small shrug, "my motto's always been 'it'll work out', and it always does eventually."

"Sounds to me like you've just been lucky," she muttered darkly, "not everypony has the luxury to be able to say that and mean it... and you do, don't you?"

"Well yeah," I replied easily, "I mean you might be right and I've just been lucky to have things work out all my life, but that kind of mindset I think can only help in situations like this. I understand the gravity of what we're going through, but I don't let it bother me so much that I become paralyzed because—"

"Because you honestly believe things will work out in the end," Twilight finished with a slow nod, "you just... forge on ahead with the assumption that everything will be fine once all is said and done," a small rueful smile crossed her face, "I think I get what Discord was talking about now."

"What's that?" I asked curiously, "what did Discord say? Was it something else about me?"

"It wasn't anything important," she said with a small shake of her head, "but I don't know if I could get behind that kind of mentality, letting things be as they are and waiting for things to get better on their own."

"Hey it's not like I've never had to work to make things better," I said raising my hands, "granted I've never had to work all that hard, but that's only because I generally try to find the easiest way out of a bad situation," I paused, "...and no, that doesn't include suicide. I don't consider trying to fight against your self-preservation instincts to be one of the easy routes to take."

"But what if there isn't an easy way, Sal?" Twilight pressed.

"Then you just hang in there until an opportunity presents itself," I replied, "it's not ideal, but it's worked for me."

"But that doesn't work for everypony!" Twilight argued, "there won't always be an opportunity or if there is, it might come too late. The mind and body can only take so much before one or both break and then you start thinking suicide isn't such a bad idea."

I opened my mouth to reply, but I didn't really have an answer to give to that. She was right, of course. I'd never had to experience the kind of emotional pain that made you want to off yourself but I knew well that there countless people that went through that kind of pain every day. I knew that—I could acknowledge that not everyone could live like I did given the myriad problems plaguing the world, but even so...

"There was a time when I thought everything would be okay as long as my friends were by my side," Twilight continued in a small voice, "then they all died and I was left to fend for myself for three years. Three years, Salvatore. I held out hope that somepony would come and pull me from that Tartarus."

"But—"

"I tried to send for help so many times, but I could never get through the barrier and nopony ever came," she interjected, "eventually I just... gave up. You have no idea how close I was to ending things on my own terms before you showed up, Sal."

"But I did show up, didn't I?" I countered, "despite losing hope, you still hung in there for those three years and it paid off... sort of. Yeah, it was pure luck on both our parts—at least I think it was—but in the end, someone did show up."

"And I'm so grateful that you did, Salvatore, really," Twilight replied earnestly, "I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to thank you enough for being there when I had nopony and no hope left, but even then we were still stuck there. If Discord hadn't interfered when he did... if I'd failed to—"

"If Discord hadn't interfered, then I'm sure you would've come up with another way to get us both out of there eventually," I continued, "and he did get you out of there, even if it wasn't exactly in the way either of us were expecting or hoping for. I know you're not sure if that was the best outcome, but in my honest opinion I think he ultimately did you a favor."

"But we were making progress!" Twilight shot back heatedly, "sure I might've failed to unlock the chaos magic within you, but if all went according to plan we could've—"

"We could've escaped the barrier to find exactly what Discord showed you," I finished, throwing my hands up, "or we could've blown ourselves up in the attempt or yeah, maybe things would've been just fine, who knows? I don't know for sure, but given the worlds that Discord's been sending me to and most likely plans to send me to in the near future, I'd bet all my chips on the worst possibility. These worlds are supposed to be part of the 'Grimverse' after all, remember?"

Twilight went to respond but froze partway through. I could practically see the gears turning in her head at my words. I know she knew that little nugget of information because she'd seen the entirety of that conversation I had with Discord in my mind. It took a moment but eventually, her shoulders slumped and a look of defeat crossed her face.

"You're right," she finally muttered, "I didn't want to believe it but even if it wasn't entirely true, everything before my friends and I were imprisoned in Ponyville did happen exactly as that fake Chrysalis described," she looked at me with a humorless smile, "when I look at it that way, it isn't a stretch to think things might've escalated to what I saw with Discord."

Aw dammit...

Here I was trying to be supportive and in the end, I just laid out the facts and probably wound up making her feel worse. That was the look of someone who'd just completely given up on life... or so I thought.

"You know... I'm kind of relieved and a little embarrassed," she said, wiping her eyes of the tears that had finally started to fall, "if I had just thought about it for a minute, I would've realized Discord was probably telling the truth back then, but I was so overwhelmed that I... I guess in the end I just didn't want to accept it, that I probably couldn't do anything to save Equestria."

"Right..." I agreed uncertainly, "and given the circumstances, I think things wound up working out for the best," I gathered up my remaining positivity and continued, "yeah you lost your home, but remember that we're working with Discord and chaos magic here. Nothing is set in stone and anything can change for better or for worse. You're still here, alive, and now we have a chance to make things better, right?"

I found the last line a bit groan-worthy, but it was the best I could think of at the moment, and it seemed to work because Twilight nodded in agreement.

"Discord told me something else," she said in a shaky yet somewhat lighter tone than before, "he told me chaos magic, more often than not, provides you with what you need rather than what you want."

"Mmm... I'm not sure about that one," I replied skeptically, "he's probably just spouting more bullshit, but then again he's the expert so I suppose it might be true. It'd be nice if it was true, that's for sure."

I thought back to what Discord had done to my eyes and had to wonder just why I 'needed' all the crazy hallucinations. I guess without them, Twilight wouldn't have tried to fix my eyes and none of this would've happened, but no, that wasn't entirely true, was it? Discord could've yanked either of us out of that Equestria at any time whether Twilight tried to use chaos magic or no, so what the hell was the deal with the hallucinations?

And where the hell did my glasses go anyway?

It took some time for me to realize they'd gone missing due to everything that happened immediately after I arrived at the library, but once everything had calmed down I tried searching for them to no avail. They just... vanished into thin air. I guess it was fine given I could see just fine now. In fact, I wasn't sure if this was how it was for everyone with twenty-twenty vision, but I had no problems seeing anything in the dark. Like, at all.

I'm pretty sure I already mentioned it before, but it was... refreshing.

"I'm going to believe that it is true. It'll make things easier to accept I think," said Twilight, bringing me back to reality. "I still need a little more time to come to grips with... all of this, but I'll do what I can to try and move on."

"Glad to hear it, because I'll probably be relying on you a hell of a lot more than you will me," I replied truthfully, "I might not have crippling night blindness anymore, but as far as I know I'm still a klutz and between the two of us, I'm not gonna be the one winning the IQ Award here."

"Well, I'm glad you think so highly of me," she said with a roll of her eyes, "but lest you forget, I'm just as clueless and as powerless as you are right now. I hate to admit it, but I'm completely out of my depth here, Sal."

"Sure, but I highly doubt things are gonna stay that way for long," I countered, "in fact, if my hunch is right, things are gonna get a lot more interesting once we meet our mysterious intruder."

"How do you figure?" Twilight asked curiously, "from the... text message, it seemed like whoever it was just wanted to talk."

"Not really sure how it'll go exactly," I said with yet another shrug, "but I'm pretty sure it'll be a magical experience in the most literal sense of the word. Like I said though, it's just a hunch. For all I know he really does just want to talk."

"Hmm..." Twilight hummed thoughtfully before suddenly turning back to me with a weird twinkle in her eye, "speaking of which, can I see your phone again?"

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

"Yeah, why not?" I sighed, pulling the device in question back out of my jacket pocket, "there's no service out here so I'm not really sure what you're getting out of it—especially considering you should already know all about phones—but knock yourself out."

Of course, I was only able to say that after carefully and discreetly uninstalling the Pornhub app. As well as removing the other more questionable things I had on my phone the first time she asked.

Not sure if she really did erase the more unsavory parts of my everyday life from her memory or not, but hey, better safe than sorry, right?

My little disclaimer did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm as she happily swiped the thing from my hand and went to town. Still, if it helped distract her from the darker thoughts she'd probably been harboring before then it was fine with me.

"Knowing about it and experiencing it for myself are two completely different things," Twilight replied distractedly, "you have to remember that we didn't have anything like this back in Equestria. Yes we had some rudimentary machines made for simple calculations and I think some of the ponies at Canterlot Tech were working on something more advanced, but it didn't come anywhere close to this."

"Canterlot Tech?" I asked, raising a brow, "you guys have—had an institute of technology?"

I winced at my choice of words, but thankfully Twilight didn't seem to notice, caught up in whatever it was she was doing on my phone as she was.

"Well, officially it's known as the Royal Institute of Technology," she explained casually, "but most just call it Canterlot Tech. I thought about going there a few times, but things didn't exactly work out that way."

"Yeah, I'll bet," I muttered, not wanting to bring too much attention to the fact that she was talking about the place like it still existed. Instead, I looked around and changed the subject, "but yeah, I think we still have about another hour and a half or so before we get to my place so you'll have plenty of time to... do whatever it is you're doing."

When I didn't hear a response I looked over to see Twilight absorbed in whatever she was looking at. Curious I moved a bit closer and took a peek. As it turned out, she'd found the .epub reader I used to read all the light novels and MLP fics I downloaded. I was a bit worried about her seeing the latter, but I decided not to say anything. If she said anything about it I figured I'd cross that bridge if I came to it.

For now, I just chose to focus on the road ahead, wishing I had my headphones and that she had her own phone so that I could listen to my music, or one of the many, many audiobooks I had.

Actually, wait a minute... did she not see that when she was messing around with my phone last time?

"Hey, Twilight, have you checked out the Audible app yet?"

That's right, I've fooled you all! It was all leading up to an ad for Audible all along!

Oh wait, this isn't Youtube... eh, you should download Audible if you haven't anyway. In all seriousness though, this was another chapter that wound up getting a bit more real than I would've liked but hopefully it still turned out okay.