---

I awoke in a sweaty, clammy start.

My muscles were shaking from the sudden warp back to corporeal reality, my synapses still fried from the recent memories of the visionary dream I awakened from. My sheets were damp from the sweat. My heart thundered in my chest.

I sat up slowly, taking a few deep breaths relieved the shaking in my muscles only by a little. I felt my heart slow down pace by pace as the seconds passed. I pat myself around to feel for the sense of touch, unsure if I was still dreaming. Slowly, the mind came to the realization that this was reality. A relieved sigh escapes me.

Carefully, I twisted my body over to gaze upon the other side of the cloud bed. Empty sheets wrinkled and draped over to the side alongside a vacant pillow was what I saw.

Night Light wasn’t here.

My heart began to thunder, but I knew better than to panic immediately. It could mean many things, but overthinking it won’t help. Gazing around the bedroom yielded no results. A window off to my right revealed the night sky’s constellations. Moonlight fed through the glass in a focused beam onto the floor.

She wasn’t in the room.

Flipping the sheets off of me and stretching my limbs, I proceeded downstairs to see the kitchen lights casting shadows from our furniture below. There was no sound apart from the faint ambiance of wind outside. I read the clock mounted on the wall next to our staircase. Two-thirty in the morning.

Carefully trotting down the stairs with ginger steps reveals Night Light sitting in a chair in the Kitchen. The smell of chocolate and cane sugar pervades the air around me as she spots me descending downstairs.

There was a brief, awkward silence as we made eye contact. I then spot where the smell was coming from. In her hooves was a painted mug in vivid colorful patterns. The beverage was still steaming from within her grasp.

She gives a shadow of a smile. “I couldn’t sleep.”

I blinked. Not sure what else to say.

She didn’t mind, it seemed. Her attention focused back on the mug. She blew on it several times before taking a long, slow sip. When she swallows, she gives a relinquished sigh of relief.

I trotted downstairs, turning towards her to take a seat. She and I sat next to one another, side to side along a table meant for more than two.

“I uh, used up the last of the Cocoa powder.” She gave a small wince as she glanced at me. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I don’t—I’m not here for that.”

She twists her head at me with a raised brow.

“I had a… well, not a nightmare, but more like a strange dream with a bad ending. Woke me up.”

Her smile creases closer together, but the structure remains. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I was just looking for you,” I answered, “saw the bed was empty.”

“Like I said, couldn’t sleep.” She takes another careful sip from her mug, drawing another sigh from her lips. “I’m trying to… I guess ‘prepare’ for tomorrow.”

“At least one of us is.”

She nods. Her eyes quickly lock onto mine in a flash. For a split second, she seemed primed to say something; something of importance that had been weighing on her mind for quite some time now.

Just as quickly as she made eye contact, she glanced back down to her steaming cup with indifference. Trying to hide the curiosity just beneath her lens.

I raised a brow. “Something wrong?” I asked innocuously.

“No, nothing’s wrong.” She quips from muscle memory. Her stance fidgets a little as cups the mug once more, blowing on it before taking another sip.

She spoke it with conviction enough, but I knew a lie when I saw one.

Well, she wasn’t lying per se. But she isn’t telling the truth either.

“Okay,” I answered atonally, pretending to be satisfied with the answer.

“... Okay?” she quickly asks.

There we go.

“You think this is okay?!” Her tone borders indignation.

“I never said that. I just said ‘Okay.’ But you clearly have something going on that isn’t okay.”

Her lips were puckered shut, almost in embarrassment for being caught like a fish out of water.

“... Touché.” She sighs. “You got me.”

A small hint of pride wells up in me at cracking her defenses. I gave a small smile to comfort her.

“You can tell me anything. What’s bothering you?” I placed a hoof on hers for reassurance.

She looks down at my hoof and gently kisses it.

“I know,” she mumbles, still tired from the lack of sleep. “It’s… It’s just hard to think about it all.”

I nodded solemnly, content with not saying anything. I waited for Night Light to proceed first.

“I’m just… worried about you more than anything. About what they are going to do to you.”

The bruise on my cheek from Bon Bon was still fresh enough to notice as I idly poked it with a hoof.

“Yeah,” I answered in a dry hum, “I don’t plan on getting punched again this time around.”

“... So that means no spitting in their faces?”

Oh right. I forgot I told that lie. I sighed.

“Actually, I’ll be straight with you. I never spat in their faces.”

She raised a brow. “... So they just… hit you for no reason then?”

“There was a reason, just not a good one. I was… being uncooperative.” I finished lamely, not sure what else to say.

A groan with a facehoof was heard from across the table.

“Sunshine,” she speaks as if she had this conversation thousands of times before, “you and I both know that is not the whole story.”

“Okay fine, I flung a bunch of insults at them after being cooped up inside the same room for hours on end. I was tired, I was hungry, and I missed you. I wanted to go home and I lashed out.” I pouted, feeling a wave of shame course through me as I burrowed my head between my hooves. “I’m not proud of it.”

“Should you be proud of it?” Night Light asked.

“Well, no, but it did feel good to vent it out at the moment… right up until they swung at me.”

Another sip. The mug had lost most of the steam by now.

“My point still stands.”

“... Worrying about me won’t do you any good.”

“And I am just supposed to not worry then?”

I paused. There really wasn’t a good answer to this predicament.

“I am worried about you too,” I amended, “but spending all of our time focusing on one another is less time spent on helping them with… whatever they want with us.”

“Oh, now you want to be cooperative? You weren’t like this yesterday.”

“Yeah, well, that was before I had the traumas of my past thrown into my face as I take a trip down memory lane. When they came to our home to take us away like we were kidnapped.” I reply with a trace of bitterness in my tone. “It’s not like I asked for it. But I don’t see any other way out. I feel like they are just as stuck with us as much as we are stuck with them.”

“... How do you mean by that?”

“When they told me I could help them,” I began as I sat up straight, “I asked ‘Why me?’ Why am I the one that is being held here when there were others I served alongside with?”

Night Light nods, enraptured by the question herself.

If only the answer wasn’t so depressing.

“Turns out… I am the only one left of my old squad. The Sole Survivor.”

Her eyes widened like saucers, and for a moment she was content with sitting still and gazing at me with horrific realization.

“That is why they need me. I have nopony else in my squad who is alive to tell the tale themselves.”

“Oh, sweet Celestia,” she mutters with a hoof over her mouth. A few seconds pass. Her brow furrows in thought.

“Wait… The tale of what exactly?”

I paused.

I didn’t mean for that last part to slip out, only to paint a picture as to the why of it all. But now, Night Light had a burning need, a desire to ask questions about the situation. And I knew better than to just outright lie to her about such things.

But that meant telling her the truth, if not the whole truth, about who I was. About what I was doing.

… Shit.

It was the last thing I wanted to do on this goddess-forsaken planet. And to the last pony that I wanted to tell it to. I was fully content to let the memories of the war die with me. But now the luxury is gone. Replaced with the menial yet monumental task of revelation.

A few seconds had passed since I channeled this inner soliloquy, and she still waited for me to explain further. There was no weaseling out of this one.

“Um… I…” I couldn’t even get the words out of my mouth.

“Sunshine?” she simply asks.

“I don’t…” I paused again. Half-baked thoughts swirl around in vivid mental images.

I shook my head violently to suppress the images.

“Sunshine are you okay?”

It’s no use. No matter how hard I try, the thoughts are now formulating mass.

They dance around long enough for the mind to fixate on a few at a time.

Memories of bones being snapped into place again from Vanhoover, nearly dying to a Panzer.

Memories of a pulpous, fleshy crevice that used to be a skull, pulverized beyond recognition.

Memories of betrayal as I stole the last breath of life from soldiers choking on gas.

Memories of Tatarus on Earth.

Warmth suddenly encompasses my being. My sight returns to me as I blink the tragic memories away. Night Light had abandoned her chair and drink in exchange for embracing me, long slender hooves wrapping around me in a protective hold.

I took several deep breaths, trying to control my breathing and my thoughts. The scent of feminine sweat, lavender, and chocolate invaded my nostrils, grounding me in the reality I was in. No scent of sulfur, gunpowder, or blood remained.

Night Light didn’t say a word. She was content with embracing me. A few tears threatened to spill over. I blinked hard several times to drown them back down the ducts.

A few slipped through the cracks, sliding down cheeks, but no sob came. A wet sniffle from my nose revealed my lack of composure to the world.

Again, Night Light was content with the silence. Hesitantly I returned the gesture to lock hooves around her, holding the warmth between her legs and in her breath. Savoring the quiet moment.

“Feel better?” she mumbles in my coat.

“Yeah.” I tightened the grip around her.

A few more moments of awkward silence pass. Eventually, she retreats from the embrace and gingerly sits back down. A look of worry etched on her features.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Don’t be,” she answers, “I get it.”

I nodded. She gently slides the cup of hot cocoa over to me, nodding at me all the while.

I grasped the handle of the mug and sniffed it carefully. The scent of cane sugar and chocolate drowned out all the other senses in the world. I closed my eyes as I took a sip and savored every sensation that stimulated the taste buds on my tongue.

It was warm; a perfect temperature to enjoy without hesitation.

It was delicious.

A sigh is heard from my nostrils as I exhaled slowly after the first sip. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“Are you okay?”

I had my mouth open to speak.

Yeah, I’m okay.

… was what I wanted to say.

The words stopped dead in my throat as I sat there, jaw agape, looking a little dumb. The vocal cords are seizing up.

My brow furrowed. I stare down at the mug now in my hooves as the dark beverage sits half-empty.

Night Light’s question rings again and again in my mind.

Are you okay?

It’s like a snap in my neurons. A fiery bolt of lightning, as quick as light itself, traveled through my brain. More memories began to surface, this time very recent ones.

How I sat upon a cloud looking at a sunset.

How goons showed up and took us away from our homes.

How I had to forcefully relive Tartarus on Earth to prevent it from happening again.

How the responsibility of this monumental task seemingly falls onto my shoulders alone.

How I mourned for the lives lost and for the decades it would take to heal the damage.

How I reunited with Night Light after a day of tormentful remembrance.

The emotional whiplash of everything amalgamated into a single thought.

Are you okay?

“No,” I answered honestly, for the first time since she asked me that question, “I am not.”

Silence. A cold breeze envelopes me from one of the windows outside. The somnolent scent of cocoa sends shivers down my spine. When I look around, I am still in my home.

It feels like I am back in that room again…

“Do you ever have the feeling that you have forgotten something terrible?”

The question left Night Light bewildered, but not without an answer as she replied with a raised brow, “Sometimes. The feeling doesn’t last, and I don’t tend to dwell on the thought for long. Why?”

“... For all the trauma I remember—willingly or otherwise—I don’t really remember everything from my past. There are a few blank gaps in my memory, mostly towards the end of the war. But even then, from what I know; from what little I do remember, all I can see is madness.”

Night Light doesn’t say a word. Her body is stock still, her eyes intense, her stature stiff, and her face hardened with years' worth of experience to steel one’s resolve. For a split second, she looked like a soldier standing at attention.

“All I can remember was me being a bad pony, but also a good soldier. All I can remember was Darkness.”

“... Darkness?” Night Light asks, more scared than curious if anything.

“What else can I call it,” I replied. It wasn’t meant to be a question.

She had no response to that.

“Imagine how many years we had been at war,” I began, “compounded by the centuries of peace we had prior. The animals are not the same to us since the war, they won’t interact with us as easily. The landscape is still marred and maimed with the remains of leftover bombs and mines, obstacles that nopony even can make a guess as to how long it will take to remove them. Nopony who is from the frontlines, or who lost their friends, families, and homes will ever be the same again.”

Painful memories are boiling over once again in my mind’s cauldron, but the lid of indifference helps prevent a spillover for the time being as my thoughts are honed on a razor’s edge. Focused on the point I am trying to deliver.

“Cities are reduced to rubble, cultures are killed, and entire populations are massacred. Many towns are villages are wiped off the map, never to be seen again. Ponies disappeared overnight and are gone forever. Soldiers are sleeping inside the dirt of the earth forever. Darkness is the only thing I can call it.

“The wounds will take decades to heal, Night Light. For some, probably more than that. And for me?”

I paused. Night Light had a look of guilt-ridden on her features by the end of the tangent. The feeling was mutual. I couldn’t shake the premonition that all of this, somehow, was my fault. As absurd as that sounded, it also seemed plausible.

After all, that nuke is still out there somewhere…

Shivers travel up my spine.

“... I am no exception to that,” I finished lamely after a long pause, “I feel like I failed, despite everything I did. I am not okay.”

“... I’m sorry,” Night Light whispers, her face looking down at the now cool mug of cocoa.

No words were exchanged between us. For a few seconds—which felt eternal yet ephemeral—Silence reigned supreme.

Soporose, supreme silence. A yawn nearly escapes me.

“... I know exactly how you feel.” I hear her whisper again, devoid of any optimism.

I glance upward at her hiding her face behind her long bangs, her silvery mane blocking her eyes as her head droops as low as her ears.

I chose to say nothing, waiting for her to elaborate if she would will herself to. Somewhere within the jungle of her mane, I see jade irises glancing through them with uncertainty.

She gives a long and bitter sigh.

“I failed so many ponies in the past that I feel like I don’t deserve to be here…”

My heart hitches in my throat for a second. A sudden sinking feeling quells in my stomach as it threatens to suffocate me. I wasn’t sure where it came from, but there was a hunch that this was a bad idea to continue down this path of conversation.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I suddenly reach out to comfort her with a hoof to her hoof, “You can let go of the past.”

“... Until tomorrow.”

I paused. For a few minutes, I had completely forgotten about S.M.I.L.E.

“And what good would that do?” she asks.

I had no answer. Only a burning curiosity.

Don’t do it. It would only hurt her, my mind thinks.

“Why?” I instinctively asked.

She inhales, holding her breath for a few moments before exhaling with a deep loud huff.

Now you’ve done it. No turning back now. You asked for this.

“I… I don’t know what they told you in there, while we were separated. But I assume they didn’t really tell you why they took me as well, didn’t you?”

I shook my head. “They gave me vague suggestions, but nothing concrete, no.”

She looks up at me with sudden resolve. “I told you already I was a pilot. Did I tell you the name of my Squadron? And what I did do?”

I pondered. The inner encyclopedia in my head came up empty on that file. I shook my head.

“Well, to put it bluntly, I was the leader of Garuda Squadron. Have you heard of that name?” She asks with bated breath.

She expects me to know her already. She expects me to understand what that name implies. Instead, I simply shook my head again.

“Really? You—Wow, that… huh.” She was genuinely shocked at the lack of awareness.

“... Should I know what that means?”

“I just… never mind. Probably for the best, that you hear it from me first.”

“So you were the leader?” I asked, with a touch of pride. Wherever that came from, I wasn’t sure. “That’s quite the position to be in.”

“It was,” she acquiesced, “a stressful, exhausting, and adrenaline-inducing position to be in. And I don’t mean that in a good way.”

“I didn’t think there was a good way for all of that.”

She smiles at that, a small crease to her lips barely visible in the light.

“You are right, there isn’t. But I digress, I was in charge of three other ponies. Over time, these ponies became more than just my squad mates. As we grew up together and as time passed on, we grew fond of each other’s company. We became friends quickly, all four of us.”

The smile widens a little further, as her mind travels back to a more pleasant set of memories. Memories of carol singing, and promises kept.

And promises broken. A hint of sadness wells up in me, somehow.

She seems sad about it too, whatever this thought was.

“... You were close to them. Very close.” I finished the thought for her.

She nods solemnly. “They were the only friends I had in this world for the longest time.”

There was a sad ending to this story. I can see it in her eyes as she stares into the skies outside the window above the sink.

“... Didn’t end well?”

No response. She stares outside for a few more seconds. After another deep breath, she held in for a moment before exhaling and turning back to me.

“I don’t know,” she replies, “I feel like I am still figuring that out.”

It was the most honest answer she had out of all the ones she came up with.

“How do you mean?”

“... What did they tell you in there?”

“Huh?”

“Why were you picked up? I can understand why I was interrogated, but why you?”

Hang on…

“... What do you mean you understand?” I asked quickly. “Why do you think you were important?”

I paused, leaning back a little on that remark. It sounded a lot less harsh in my head than out loud. Even Night Light was taken aback on this.

“Sorry, that was… I didn’t mean to say that. I just… Why do you say that you understand why they want you? What was special about you, exactly?” I asked tactfully, careful with the way I said it.

She forgets the question she had asked earlier and instead focuses on me.

… It’s for the best. Don’t want her to know what kind of monster you are, right?

Shut up brain, not now.

Night Light looks at me with penance, clearly dreading the question I had asked. Not like she wasn’t about to speak her mind on it earlier. But why the sudden change of topic?

… Just how much did her past haunt her?

“Why do you say that like you knew the reason as to why they are taking us away in the first place?”

“Because I think I do,” she replies earnestly, “and I want to know why they want you too.”

She parries the probe away and lunges the thought back to me with expert precision.

No wriggling out that easily.

“I said—” I stopped myself dead by shoving a hoof to my mouth before my tone grew more indignant than it already was.

“... What?”

“Nothing, just…” I stuttered, trying to find my footing. “I-I don’t really know why they want me, I just know that I am the last survivor of my squad. And the last puzzle piece to whatever narrative they are piecing together.”

“And do you know what narrative that is? Why are they after you?”

“I asked you the same thing—”

“And I asked you first, stop dodging the question Sunshine!” she tersely pipes up in her tone.

“WHY?!” I screamed.

The sinking feeling in my stomach returns stronger than before; a whirlpool of regret and shame welling up to absorb whatever composure remained, now washed away in guilt.

As I slowly internalized what just happened, Night Light sat back with pain and worry in her eyes. Neither of us spoke a word as I slowly sat back down.

Silence. Awkward, palpable silence reigned once more. I shuffle my hooves together and divert my gaze to them. The last thing I saw was Night Light’s expression hardened to a frown.

“... Sorry,” I mumbled.

“... I guess I won’t ever know from you, then.”

It felt like a stake pierced my heart at those words. I look up to see Night Light’s gaze avoiding mine.

“I’m going back to bed,” she quietly announces, getting up and leaving behind the mug of half-finished cocoa. “Goodnight.”

I hear her hoofsteps softly pelt against the stiffy surface of cloud carpet, retreating back upstairs to our room.

You want to tell her the truth, don’t you? What is stopping you?

I didn’t want to hurt her.

Yeah? Well, you failed on that one. She feels like she can’t trust you now. Or maybe she does… against her better judgment.

Maybe she’ll ask those in the agency about your past. Then she will learn the hard way. You do have a lot of skeletons in your closet that you would rather not see the light of day.

I hear her hoofsteps getting fainter.

“... I failed.”

The words left my mouth subconsciously, but they felt right. The hoofsteps behind me stop where they stood, but I didn’t dare turn around.

“... I wasn’t just a soldier on the ground who saw something; I was a part of a mission. A mission that spanned for years and for hundreds of kilometers that sent me on a wild goose chase all across the continent.”

“... And you failed because…?” She was afraid to ask.

“I failed because, despite all I have done, I never completed the mission I was a part of. And in light of that failure, my mission was superseded by others that were deemed more important. And even after the war’s end, nopony knows what happened really happened. All we knew was that despite everything, we still failed.”

“We?” I hear her hoofsteps approach me, softly; cautiously.

“My squad… before they were gone, we all worked towards the same goal. And we all failed. And now? I am the only one left to live with that failure.”

Night Light came into view from my left as she gingerly sat down in the same chair that she left moments ago. Her face donned an expression of worry and profound curiosity. One that was familiar to me and Bon Bon’s.

“... What failure?” she asks carefully.

No turning back after this. Say it, but say it carefully. Don’t spook her.

“... Years ago, in… I wanna say 1014? I honestly don’t remember the year, but I think 1014. Anyways, that year the army had finally liberated Vanhoover from the Changeling occupation with an invasion force of Pegasi, approaching from the sea to take them by surprise.”

“... And you were there?”

“I was, yes. I saw bad things there, things I won’t go into now. But there was something else we found in Vanhoover that haunts me still to this day.”

She leaned in, enraptured. No backing out of this now.

“... Can you promise me something before I tell you?” I ask her. She was taken aback by this sudden request but nods profusely. “Promise me that you won’t tell anypony this, especially those in S.M.I.L.E. tomorrow. I just… don’t know how to handle this.”

She frowned at the request. Her eyes scanned me for any hint of deception or ulterior motives. Eventually, she grabs hold of my hoof with hers, squeezing it in her grip with firm strength as she stares me dead in the eyes. “I promise.”

It was reassuring, and a little inspiring. I felt a shadow of a smile creep up to my lips. I took a deep breath.

“In the sub-levels of the City Hall, the Changelings had holed up inside of a vault that they intended to use as their final stand. They mutinied against their officer and surrendered willingly when they realized they were trapped. My squad was assigned to clean up the vault and check for anything interesting they left behind.

“Hidden away in this same vault was an express elevator that led even further down underground. A secret room, if you will. I don’t know what they were using this room for, but they had a lot of maps and documents lying around inside. They clearly weren’t expecting visitors.

“How come? What did you find?”

“It was hidden away behind boxes and filing cabinets before we even found the elevator. I doubt the officer who was in the vault at the time even knew about it.”

My heart thundered faster, feeling it about to burst any second as I tried again to calm myself with deep breaths.

“... There was a case inside the sub-basement, hidden away in a corner that had been untouched for a long time. And inside…”

My throat tightened as I swallowed a chunk of saliva.

“Inside the case were three shaped spaces, built to contain Nuclear Bombs.”

Barely a second passed after those words before an audible gasp was heard from Night Light. It was so quiet and faint that I almost mistook it for my own hitched breathing. Another gust of wind billows gently past us as silence takes control again.

My mind travels back to the night in Vanhoover, my squad standing over the open case in dumbfounded disbelief. The shape of the bombs inside the case was cylindric in nature, supporting a capsule at the top that was fixed into the cylinder like a fuze. A glowing red button sat at the top of these capsules, waiting to be pressed. The space in the middle was empty, whereas that same space was pinched between two more filled spaces; each containing its own bomb to transport.

“... There were only two inside.”

My heart pulsed in an irregular rhythm, pounding hard enough that I would be convinced its exploding with each beat. Cold sweat was accumulating across my body as it began to quake and shiver. A cold blanket of anxiety and dread smothers my being.

All I can think about is that empty space in the middle.

That one fucking space.

“Nuclear…” she repeats the word, feeling it on her tongue for the first time. “... Wait, the same bomb that we dropped on Vesalipolis?”

My mind travels back to that day. I remember hearing about it from rumors first before any concrete evidence was made. I remember a newspaper clipping that somehow managed to smuggle past the contraband checks and slipped through to the soldiery.

The newspaper clipping telling the event made it sound painfully mundane. But I remember one anecdote from it. An interview with the pilot who had aided in dropping the bomb; Lightning Dust.

My mind travels back; it pictures a scene of a bomber landing clumsily on a paved tarmac, surrounded by a crowd of cheering ponies as they return from a successful mission. The bomber named ‘Octavia Melody’ brakes the wheels to a halt as the side doors open up to reveal the interior.

Lightning Dust, the pilot, steps out of the cabin first followed by the rest of her crew as they are immediately swarmed by the Press to record what happened. One of these ponies from the Press asks the fabled question:

“How did it feel?”

“... Pretty good,” she begins, “definitely gave their nest a good rattling on that one. Can’t say how, can’t say why, but I can say for certain that there are a lot of dead bugs down there. It makes me tempted to rename ol’ Octy here to ‘Roach Repellent.’”

I blink, and I am back home. Night Light looks at me expectantly.

“The same, yes,” I conclude.

Silence. Night Light contemplates this sudden batch of information and revelations. She furrows her brow in deep thought as her eyes dart across the table like she is drawing lines with her pupils.

“A Nuclear Bomb…” she repeats in disbelief. Her eyes never leave the table, as she slows them down to stare at her mug in deep concentration. I never interrupted her as I was content to sit in silence and await her judgment.

“So let me make this perfectly clear: You were searching for a Nuclear Bomb, all throughout the war; a bomb that was supposed to be in a basement in Vanhoover alongside two others; and before, during, and after the war’s end, you still never found it?”

“... Yes.” I quietly answered.

“... And is this why these ponies want you too? To find it?”

“... More or less, yeah.”

More silence.

I gaze at the table, unable to look at Night Light again as I say these words. The beating in my heart never subsided, and now the quakes were visible to her.

“... Sunshine,” she begins.

I close my eyes.

Here it comes.

“... I don’t understand.”

“Huh?” I answered, sounding dumb again. “W-what do you mean you don’t understand?”

“I mean: that doesn’t make any sense!”

I look up at her staring at me incredulously, with one of her brows creased in a curious frown.

“... Elaborate, please.” I ask slowly.

“Okay. first of all: You found these in the basement of City Hall? Inside a secret room? I don’t mean to be callous, but that sounds like you just made it up. And secondly, you found two of three? And they were in capsules?”

“But that-”

“It doesn’t make any sense, Sunshine!” She repeats the phrase with a hint of indignation. “You’re telling me that you have nothing to do with me? At all?! They are just plucking you along because of that?”

“You are making it sound like this isn’t real! It is real, Night Light, I’ve seen them with my own eyes! What reason would I have to lie to you?”

She huffed and panted, but otherwise had no retort or answer.

“I know it sounds insane, I get it! I ran the whole thing in my mind over thousands of times at this point! Why does it keep coming back to haunt me? I don’t know! Why I am being interrogated by these goons in suits? I don’t know! All I know is that this,” I stretch my hooves out wide, highlighting the insane situation and the absurd conversation we were in, “all of this that we are in has something to do with that fucking bomb!”

“And I don’t believe that!” She nearly screams back.

A staring contest between us erupts as we both confront each other's worldview, seemingly simultaneously. Both of us are at an impasse.

“... Why?” I asked carefully. “And I don’t mean that in a confrontational way. I just want to know why. Why do you think that a Nuclear Bomb has nothing to do with this?”

The tone of my voice, the cadence of my speech, the choice of my words; all of this left her without a defense to conjure up. Whatever she was going to say, the words died in her throat.

Eventually, she sits back down with a sigh. “... I don’t know. I just thought that… I thought you were collateral damage for what I had done. But now?”

She clutches her temples in a groan. “It just… It doesn’t make sense!”

“... How?” I asked tactfully, no hint of rage or indifference apparent. “Enlighten me.”

Wrinkles on her forehead furrowed in thought. She doesn’t show effort in hiding her indecision, but eventually, a sigh is heard.

“... Before I do, I need to tell you something,” she begins, her tone suddenly serious. “Everything I did, everything I am about to tell you, all that I had seen; I didn’t ask for any of this. I just wanted to survive. And, in a strange way, I know how you feel about all of this.”

I tilted my head on that one. The way she said it with conviction, no hesitation found in her voice.

This is the truth. The whole, honest truth from her.

“Once upon a time during a thunderstorm over Mead Lake, I died.”

The words shocked me for a split second, until I remember she was still here.

“... You don’t appear to be dead,” I idly remarked, “quite healthy in fact.”

“You’re right. But to everypony else? They thought I was dead. In reality, though, my plane got shot down and I didn’t get out in time for anypony to see my survive. I had a lot of bruised bones, and I had been shot in my shoulder. So far, not a good day.”

“I’ll say, and here I thought I had bad days…”

“It didn’t get much better after that. I managed to retreat into the mountains north of Mead Lake and slept in a cave to tend to my wounds after a few hours of flying in a torrential down pour. I was sickly, hurting all over, and the bullet wound I took was now infected.

“Despite all of that, however, I survived. And long story short, I flew to Las Pegasus, met somepony who helped me out, and managed to fly my way back home to the fleet with a plane they lent me.”

“... Very generous,” I observed.

“Not without a price,” she amended, “Everypony thought I was dead during that time. And so, having me come back home after that was… quite the shock. Not just for the ponies that knew me, but for my enemies as well. And another long story short, I had a friend who helped get me back on my hooves; the same friend who helped guide me back home in Las Pegasus.

“This friend of mine, I owed a favor to. And I was able to repay that favor in earnest. Although,” she pondered, “strangely enough, I don’t remember hearing him thank me for doing that.”

“He? A stallion?”

“An intelligent and diligent one, yes. I respected him… maybe against my better judgment.” A pang of sadness coats her words before she shakes them off. “But nevertheless, I helped him.”

“What favor did you help him with?”

Another sigh, “Yet another long story short, I helped him listen to enemy communications by sparring against them. And this helped me get an advantage against them in return. I helped him, he helped me. A sort of symbiotic relationship, except one that was aimed towards battling Changelings. Needless to say, I welcomed the advantages it gave me.”

“I would too,” I admitted, “It sounds powerful.”

“It was. And in a strangely cathartic way—which is a little disturbing to admit—I enjoyed how much power I had over them. It made me feel like I was one step ahead of them at all times, and I knew what to do.”

“How was this possible?” I asked. No technology I had heard of was capable of doing this.

“That’s just the thing, I am not really sure how myself. All I knew was that he gave me an earpiece—the only one of its kind that he entrusted me with—that was capable of simultaneously translating and transmitting any frequency that wasn’t immediately recognized on a broadwave channel.” She spouts the scientific-sounding words as if she had heard this lecture hundreds of times.

“It told me what they were saying, and who was saying it. And any encryption they had would be immediately dissected in real-time before the transmission would begin.”

“That sounds rather miraculous. And you were just… gifted this prototype? The only one of its kind?”

“I know, it sounds unbelievable.”

But it’s not. It is the truth. I can tell with the conviction in her words. It was hard to deny and she had no reason to lie about it either.

“Okay, this is… a lot to take in. So… You have this earpiece. Is that why S.M.I.L.E. wants you as well?”

Just like that, the enthusiasm about this conversation wanes like a decrescendo. Her smile dissipates, and her eyes gaze into space in deep concentration.

“Truth be told, I don’t think so. I mean, they said why they wanted me, but I am having a hard time believing it myself.”

“And what reason is that?”

“Aigaion.”

My heart stops for a split second.

The ever-familiar word repeats again and again in my mind as I struggle to process what Night Light had just said. I almost couldn’t believe it, and it took the last vestiges of composure left in me to not panic and flinch at those words.

Painful memories began to surface again.

“A-Aigion?” I stuttered, trying my best to mask the panic festering beneath.

“Weird name, I know,” she speaks innocuously, “Do you know it?”

For a few seconds, my brain refused to work. Until it eventually conjured a very simple and neutral response.

“No,” I answered atonally, trying to hide my awareness of the monstrosity.

“I wouldn’t hold it against you. It’s an airship. One that is dead now, so I cannot for the life of me imagine why they want to put my life on hold over it.” She mulls it over to herself, not really talking to me anymore. “I feel like they are missing something… and so am I.”

“That’s why they want you?”

She nods solemnly. “A dead fragment of my past coming back to haunt me. Even in death, its ghost still refuses to leave me alone. And it’s gotten these ponies at S.M.I.L.E. in a tizzy over it.”

Panic seeped into my heart. Hiding it from Night Light took an extreme effort of willpower, whatever iota of it remained for me at this point.

“... So, a Nuclear Bomb, huh?” She swiftly changes topics.

“Y-Yeah. Now you know.” I finished lamely. Sudden, palpable relief that she didn’t pursue the topic of Aigaion further calms me.

“... And it’s still out there, somewhere? We just have a rogue Nuclear Bomb around the world somewhere that nopony has found?”

“It would seem that way,” I answered honestly. “And they need my help to find it.”

She gives a long, bitter sigh. “What a strange, sad world we live in for something like that to happen, huh?”

Again, the awkwardness returned in full force as we suddenly both ran out of energy to continue talking. I looked back at the clock.

Five minutes until Three in the morning.

“... We need to sleep,” I resigned, “We’re gonna need the energy for tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” she answers with a deep yawn, “that sounds lovely.” She quickly gets up from her chair seconds before I do the same.

I suddenly feel glomped from behind, fur rubbing against feathers. Night Light embraces me with a tight squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” she simply apologizes.

“For what?”

“For pressing you, for making you feel guilty about this… I don’t know. I just feel sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I returned the embrace, rubbing her hooves with my own as we both stood on hind legs supporting one another’s weight. “I feel like I started all of this. If anypony should apologize, it’s me for forcing you to talk about your past in the first place.”

“... I still feel bad, though.”

“Well, we can both feel bad together, and that will even itself out. Maybe we will realign the cosmos with our combined angst.”

A groan was heard from my mane as she buried her face in my neck. “Ugh, bad humor won’t help me with that, you know.”

I gave a small giggle, “I can only try.”

---

Me and Night Light collapsed into the bed from exhaustion, neither of us finding the energy within us to drape the sheets back over us so instead we opted to spoon one another for warmth instead.

She approached me from behind her hooves wrapped around my barrel, interlocking with one another as she pulled me closer. Her warm breath tickled my neck with each huff. Her face cradles between the pillows and my neck for support. After a few seconds of settling in her weight, a sigh of relief was heard from her.

“Goodnight,” she mumbles.

“Goodnight,” I mumble back.

Her breathing slows down to steady, rhythmic paces. Each exhale down my spine sends another wave of drowsiness to my brain as I close my eyes. My mind is blissfully blank and empty, ready for another start into the oblivion of slumber. I ready my subconscious for sleep.

But sleep doesn’t come.

I lay there for an inordinate amount of time. Five, ten, thirty minutes? An hour? I don’t know how long I was there, only that I was still awake. My eyes are heavy and the weight pressing against my back prevents me from moving. But yet, the promise of slumber eludes me.

A soft groan escapes my lips. I took another deep breath and willed myself to stop moving and stop thinking.

A few minutes of blissful silence pass, until even my thoughts are starting to feel heavy. Half-formed words and images float about.

Amalgamated shapes are forming beneath the shadows of my eyelids.

Eventually, images began to take shape and materialize in front of my eyes.

---

Inside the hallways of S.M.I.L.E. Agency, I see a familiar door waiting for me at the other end of the hall. Dread and terror coat my soul as my body feels cold and heavy.

I twist away from the door and turn around to see a black pale, forbidding me from entering its murky contents. Denying even an acknowledging glance of its existence.

Turning back around reveals the same hallway, and the same door, that I had been trapped in.

“I don’t want to,” I mutter.

Somewhere, deep within the bowels of this facility, a shivering presence connects itself to me like nerve endings set ablaze. Words pierce through my skull, omniscient in its presence enough to give sound.

And it sounds like a mare, whispering to me.

Beckoning me to come to her.

She was waiting for me beyond that door, whatever she was. The sinking feeling in my gut overtakes me as another hunch plagues my thoughts.

You won’t like what is beyond that door.

“What choice do I have?” I mumble as I began to walk. It felt like the gravity of the planet had grown more powerful. The weight of the universe itself was pushing down against my back as I trudged forward toward that blank metallic door with no window or handle. Only a push-panel.

A few arduous minutes of crawling rewarded me with planting my hoof against the smooth, cold surface. Shivers traveled up my spine again as I pushed through the door with all my might. Until it finally groaned forward with a deafening roar.

Exhaustion overtook me as I collapsed into the dark room. Crawling further in, I noticed that Gravity had finally returned to normal. Ceasing its needless onslaught onto my bones as I finally stood up straight.

There was no light in the room. Save for the illumination from outside. The doorway was only slightly agape as I turned around to look back outside.

Only to see the door close on its own in a lightning-quick motion, plunging me into darkness. I twisted my body, left-right, up-down. Everywhere I looked yielded nothing but an abyss to gaze into.

“Hello?” I gently called out, wondering who was the voice I heard earlier. “Anypony here?”

A foul stench suddenly invades my nostrils. An infamously familiar smell that I wanted to forget forever. The stink pervaded the room around me, lingering like a plague in the air. I smothered my nostrils, but I could still taste the odor.

Do you remember the stench of death?

A choir of voices speaks to me. A chorus that would never hear the final applause ferments itself into my consciousness, no larger than a single malt of grain.

There was a buzz and popping sound from above me. The light bulb in the room ignites itself to light to illuminate its surroundings. I stared at a blank, dull wall that boasted a monotonous grey paint.

Another sound was heard. The sound of flies buzzing.

I turn around to see the source of the foul odor.

Jumping back in horror, I found myself staring eye-to-eye with a walking corpse. Its eye sockets had long since been empty of its ocular occupants. Maggots and worms burrow themselves between the gaps of bone marrow and rotten tissue. The face still bloated with blemishes and tumors, yet the skeletal remains of a pony still stand in place. Its flesh long since rotted off from decomposition.

It wore a Brodie Helmet to conceal its waning mane and exposed skull, hiding the exposed brain matter just sitting beneath. The purple uniform of the Equestrian Army was stained with caked blood and feces. The stench of death assaulted my nostrils so violently, that I had to suppress the urge to hurl there and then. It was impossible to escape the smell as I was trapped in the room with… it.

It stared at me with its blank eyeholes in the skull, its grin permanently etched onto its face. It opens its mouth to speak. From within the depths of my psyche, I could feel eternity in its wide maw. No tongue, only dried, aged teeth.

Do you remember the scent of your youth?

A gravelly voice, coarse like sandpaper rubbing against skin, touches the threads of my mind. There was something about this corpse; the way they talked, the way they stood, the way they dressed; how intimately familiar they were to me…

Do you remember the warmth of the summer?

The way it chooses the questions it asks…

Do you remember why you chose to forget everything?

Do you remember how many times you should have died?

Do you remember how many times that you have killed?

Do you remember who you were before you walked the path of damnation?

“What is this?” I finally asked, feeling cold fangs sinking into me.

You know who I am. You should know. How can you forget your own reflection?

“Reflection?”

Oh come on now, Sunshine, you do yourself a disservice. All the years you spent adapting to the horrors that Tartarus threw at you, all the creatures you’ve sent to its gates, and you cannot remember?

… Me.

“... You are me.”

No. I am what you should be.

“... But I am alive.”

Exactly.

“... How do you know me so well if you are supposed to be dead?”

It chuckles.

I know that you, like a fly, rise up from the wreckage of your old shell, buzz around for a while, then curl up and die at the window of truth. You bumble about the pane, seeking the light it gives you without any plan for your actions, and fall exhausted when you fail.

It pauses for a short moment.

I wonder if you will ever learn from your mistakes.

I chose not to pry on that topic, waiting for it to continue. A surge of indignation swells up within me.

But it doesn’t matter. The wheel of history continues to make its turn without you.

“TELL ME WHAT THIS IS! Why are you here?!” I lash out, intolerant rage swelling up in my being.

You know why I am here. I am the bad day. I am the inevitable. I am the instrument of fate that has crushed so many. And you, Sunshine, have failed.

“What are you talking about? FAILED ON WHAT?!”

It’s the worst day of all time, Sunshine. It’s coming. And she will hear about it. And you cannot stop it.

For the first time since I laid my eyes on it, the corpse finally moved its head downward as if it were staring me down. Several joints and bones pop in audible ‘clicks’ as its eyesockets burrow their gaze into mine. The abysmal depths beneath pull me into its gaze.

Tell me. Where are your friends, Sunshine? Where have they gone?

“... Dead.”

That’s right. Gone, and never coming back. And who’s fault is that?

I didn’t answer.

You failed Night Light. You failed your friends. You failed Equestria. You failed the world.

You failed me.

You failed Elysium itself.

“I don’t… no, thats not…” I found no energy to finish the thought. Tears pricked my eyes as the corpse continued to speak. Strangely, it sounded atonal yet angry.

You really dropped the ball on this one, Sunshine. One-point-four BILLION creatures on the planet—And you failed every single one of them.

Silence. My gaze hung low as the flies began to circle around me.

Everything, from the isles to the mountains, the ocean bed, the leylines, the fabric of the aethers, and the gates of Tartarus. Burning, furious truth, thousands of years of recorded history.

You have royally fucked up, Sunshine.

“I… who am I talking to…?” I mumble, trying to combat the dread, the guilt, the shame, and the sorrow all threatening to drown me.

Nopony? Yourself? Who knows? All you ever do is talk, talk, talk. Even in your dreams, even now, when everything is cast into oblivion, you still cannot help yourself.

The walls around me began to leak, melting downward in a puddle of black soupish liquid.

“I’m trying… I’m still trying..”

The corpse disintegrates into powder, melting into the walls as the room around me loses its lucidity.

What is that? I cannot hear you. But hark! Do you feel that? Is that awareness creeping up on you? It is! It’s your conscience, and it is unhappy.

“Wait… Please…” I reach out into nothing, trying to hold on to nothing, talking to nothing.

Why am I here? What am I doing here?

I can only remember the voices of the dead singing a song to me as I emerge back from the pale of sleep.

It’s time you remember why you forgot.

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