I love napping. It's not quite as fun as sleeping since I don't usually dream when I nap, but still, it's restful and it lets me take my mind off shit. Still, this surface I'm napping on... What is it anyway? It's supple like sand, but coated in some sort of durable plastic, like the vinyl lining of the pool. There's something wrapped around my chest just behind my forelegs...

Wait. Wasn't I napping in the pool? I open my eyes slowly. Sure enough, I'm on the bottom of the pool along with the air mattress and a bunch of pool noodles, and there's not a drop of water to be seen. What the fuck is going on here? Water doesn't just disappear like that. That's at least twenty thousand liters of liquid! Drip. If someone stole that much water, surely they'd have seen me. Drip. Why steal water, but not the unicorn lounging in the pool. Drip!

Okay seriously, stop dripping water on my head, whoever it is! I'm trying to solve the mystery of the vanishing pool water! Hold on a sec. Water goes missing, I'm on the bottom of the pool, and someone's dropping water on my head? This does not bode well for me.

I look up, and immediately regret it. “Oh fuck no!” I jump to my hooves, and run across the bottom of the pool to the ladder. Shit, shit, shit! This thing wasn't made for ponies. I turn my head back up to look at the impossible floating pool water. This isn't a fucking magical accident! This is a magical cluster-fuck! “I have to get out of here before that thing—”

SPLASH!

From the center of the floating liquid mass, all the water begins to spill down into the pool, like a bottle that's sprung a leak. It's fast, hot and wet. As I am forced against the wall of the pool, I can't help but note that the water seemed to be heating in addition to floating. It's at least a few degrees higher than standard human body temperature. It would have to be for it to feel hot to me, right? Then again, I have no idea what Lyra's usual body temperature even is.

I probably shouldn't be musing over frivolous things when hot water is forcing its way in through my nostrils and down my throat. Why am I not floating up to the surface? I can feel my horn caught on the bottom rung of the ladder. Fighting the desire to panic, I instead try to calm down. Panicking will only cause a drowning incident; I don't want to die—not in the body of someone else.

I carefully remove my horn from the ladder, and float to the surface. With a dramatic flail, I hook my forelegs over the side of the pool, and my back hooves into the rungs of the ladder. Even as I pull myself out of the pool, I am coughing. I need to expel the water in my lungs, but I can't. No matter how hard I try, I simply can't cough it all out.

I flop on the deck as the edges of my vision blacken. Where'd Mom even go? I feel so weak, and my body doesn't even feel like my own any more. It feels strangely like that dream, where I'm not in control. So this is how I die: a lonely guy trapped in the body of a unicorn.

I could swear I heard someone scream 'Don't you dare die in my body!' Of course I don't want to die in your body Lyra, but I don't know how to purge the water from my lungs! Then an image enters my mind. It's not much, just a 3D cross-section of a pony's lungs. Yeah, draw me a picture why don't you? Oh, just push the water out. When you put it that way...

Envisioning the lowest points in each lung, I form a lung shaped telekinetic field and enclose all the water inside. Slowly—carefully—I force the water through the bronchial passages and up the trachea. Bringing me relief, it begins to spill out through my mouth, until finally it's clear. My vision is just a pinprick of light now, and all I can hear is the dull throb as my heart tries—and fails—to pump oxygenated blood to all my extremities. Finally, my eyelids become too heavy to keep open.

“Breathe!” I hear someone shouting from a great distance. It's not Lyra though; it's Mom! But what's going on? There's this rhythmic hammering sensation in the side of my chest, and it feels like something is being forced in my mouth and down my throat. Why do I feel like something is missing? “Come on, breathe damn you!”

Oh right! I was supposed to be breathing! Greedily, I attempt to suck in air, only to find I already have a lungful. Of course, you can understand that would just cause a coughing fit. I wrench my eyes open as I cough weakly, trying to steady my breathing. It's only when my vision focuses that I realize I've just coughed very forcefully into my mother's face, covering it and her glasses in spittle. She doesn't seem to mind.

Instead, she lifts me upright, and pulls me against her in a tight hug. Sobbing into my mane, I could almost hear her muttering. What she was muttering was beyond me, but I didn’t have to hear it to know why she was crying. In that moment, I understood just how bothered and hurt she really was by all this. She’s all but lost her son to something she doesn’t quite understand, shattering the normalcy of her life. Not only that, she probably doesn’t know whether to be proud that I’m challenging gender stereotypes by liking something girly, or be ashamed that I’m into something so infantile as a television show intended for a younger audience.

She’s been losing me ever since this whole cluster-fuck began, and I go and make it worse by nearly drowning my idiot ass. What would it do to her if I tell her that I’m suffering personality death on top of everything else? It will destroy her. As much as the suffering this has brought to my mother pains me, I am hurt even more knowing that I’ll never be able to keep this whole overwrite personality death business a secret.

For at least the second time in as many days, I break down too, and begin sobbing into my mother’s shoulder. None of this is fair—not to me, and especially not to her! I screw my eyes shut and grit my teeth This is all just so fucking stupid! Why did I have to haphazardly say yes to Lyra’s offer?

I suck in a deep breath and try to calm myself. I’m no good to anypony—anybody damn it—if I’m just a sobbing wreck. Nothing I can say will make anything better. All I can do for either of us is pat her on the back with these small hooves. “It’s alright, mom. I’m alright now.” I whisper. The only thing that will heal this hurt is time. At least, she’ll heal enough until I stick the knife back in and have to tell her about my eventual loss of self.

‘Why are you so negative?’ a very familiar voice in the back of my mind whispers. ‘You should be happy we didn’t drown!’

My blood runs cold. Am I hallucinating? Has my mind fractured so badly under the strain of impending personality death that part of me has split off and taken the persona of Lyra? Or is it much simpler, and enough of Lyra’s imprint has restored enough that she’s become self aware?

‘I don’t know!’ that Lyra voice seems to say. ‘I woke up Celestia knows where, with no memory of how I got here. Most of my memories aren’t there, and then there are memories that don’t fit in with mine. To top it all off, I have no control over my own body, and I’m pretty sure I’m being hugged by a human.’

Great. I’m suffering personality death, I’ve alienated most of my family, I’ve been blown up, I’m stuck in Lyra’s body, my pets hate me, and now I’m pretty sure I’m suffering a psychotic break. Lyra, I think for the sake of my sanity, just access my memories at your own whim instead of asking me questions. My mind isn’t cut out for this sort of thing. Besides, once I’m done here, I’ve got to go talk to you-in-my-body via Skype.

‘I’ll take your word for it and read your memories then.’ There is a pause before she continues. ‘It’s not like I have anything better to do like this.’ Yeah, sorry. Not my fault. I think given the memories, you’ll find a way not to be mad at me. If not, no sleep lost. Just remember I’m not going without a fight. ‘Alright then. Now for the love of Celestia, go tend to your mother! She needs you.’

“That’s it, just let it all out.” She clearly has a lot pent up, so I can at least let her vent some of it. I just sit there, letting her cry against my mane, patting her back softly with a hoof all the while. What else can I do? I’m not good at this emotional shit. It’s a side effect of being generally maladjusted. Most of the time I have problems accepting or controlling my own emotions—or lack thereof—never mind sympathizing those of others.

Her hands come to rest on my withers, and she pulls her head away. “I think I’m as close to alright that I’ll ever be.” she says at last. A cool breeze washes over us, causing both of us to shiver. “Maybe it’s time to go inside.”

I pull back and realize that my fur is still soaking wet from the near drowning. Fuck am I ever cold now. “Yeah. You go on ahead,” I reply softly. “Maybe you should go lay down for a bit.” Sure, she was dozing and sunbathing earlier, but she’d be resting her mind more than her head.

Nodding softly, she turns and walks up onto the patio. Mom gives me one last sad look before pushing the door open and stepping in. As soon as the door shuts, I levitate the towel off of the deck chair and begin imitating the motions Lyra went through in the memory I’d endured. I could swear that the Lyra inside my head made an amused nicker. What amused her, I wonder?

‘Oh nothing,’ she giggled. Okay, now I know she’s up to something. ‘I’m not, I swear! I just thought it was funny how accurately you were imitating my towel habits.’ Considering I went through it only a few hours ago, kinda hard not to remember it. I make a mental effort of rolling my eyes at this bizarre method of communication.

I’d like to do my mane up in the bun, but I still don’t trust myself like that. Put off but not particularly discouraged, I wring out the towel. Once I drape it over myself, I feel confident enough to follow in my mother’s footsteps and trot back into the house. So what if I was a soggy little ghost? I don’t give enough of a fuck right now. I just want to go over to the laptop, call up Lyra, and hope for some good news.

‘I think I’d like to hear from myself too.’ Oh for the love of... ‘What? It’s one thing to hear your voice in a memory, but it’s another to actually hear it. Besides, it’d be neat, right?’ I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. ‘Alright, fine. I’m worried what’s going to become of me. I can’t deny your memories, but if they fix this, I’m going to cease to be.’ Well... Fuck.

Passing through the door, I trot over to the couch. Waiting for the thing to resume power, I flick the laptop open and wait. As soon as it’s logged on and connected to the net, I see the Skype icon in the task bar begin to tally up inbound text messages. They all had the same general urgent message: Soren, call me!

‘I think you should call me, Soren.’ Thanks for that, head Lyra.

Lyra’s Skype profile was already online, so I decided to set myself to appear online. I barely even have the cursor over T00tyFruityLyra1996—damn this inefficient touch-pad method—when I receive a call. Thankfully, it’s Lyra-in-my-body and not Lyra-in-my-head. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. Does that make any sense Lyra?

‘Just answer the call,’ she replies sourly, forcing into my mind the image of a pony slamming her hoof into her face.

Frantically, I force the cursor over to the answer button and jam down the left mouse button. In that same instant, I levitate my slightly burned headset onto my head and adjust the microphone. Oh god, why am I so tense, and why do I feel pins and needles going down the back of my neck?

“Hello, you’ve reached Soren’s house of Lyra, with Lyra on the line, and Lyra in my head. How can I help you today?” I really just said that, didn’t I? God, I’m brain damaged. There’s no doubt about it. All this shit is happening and now I’m acting like some cheerily glib motherfucker?

“Hello? Is this working?” a familiar voice flows into my ears. I know that voice too well, and it certainly isn’t my own. It’s roughly the same voice I’ve across many cartoons with variations. It’s the best pony! “Are you sure he can hear me, Lyra?”

‘Best pony, really?’ Lyra says with an unimpressed tone.

“Hush, Lyra—”

“No, I’m Twilight Sparkle—”

“Not you, Twilight... I was talking to the Lyra inside my head and—”

“As much as I’d like to talk about that with you right now, there’s something important we have to discuss.” I don’t like the tone in her voice. I recognize that bad shit is happening and it’s about to get worse tone. “Soren, wasn’t it? Listen, Lyra brought me over because... well...”

Another voice cuts in over the line. It isn’t one that I recognize. “Please don’t be mad at me.” a very feminine voice says apologetically.

I think my brain just exploded.

Author's Notes:

Re-edited 10 July 2017