Sunset Shimmer slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry and her head was pounding up a storm.

"Oh, my head..." she groaned, resting a hand on her forehead. "What happened?"

Her vision began to clear up a little bit, allowing her to see her surroundings. She currently found herself laying on the floor of what seemed to a narrow, blood red cave.

This is strange. Just moments ago she was fighting against a new magical evil, like she always did, with her friends. So where did she end up disappearing to?

She placed her left foot firmly on the... rather warm, hard ground and pushed herself up straight from her knee.

Looking directly upwards, she could see a bright light, and the walls of this cave seemed to continuously rise up towards the light. She couldn't see the edge of the walls, so it's safe to assume it never even ends.

Looking around a little more, she found that there was a hallway that she actually could see the end of. This was the only direction she could go in so she began walking in that direction.

Odd. Sunset feels strangely fine after the battle she was just in the middle of. She remembered taking in a good amount of hits from who she was battling, so much so that she had trouble standing at the time. But now? Fit as a fiddle.

Upon losing herself in thought of how she was fine after being not fine, she found herself tripping over a small rock poking out of the ground that sent her to the floor.

"Oof!" she exclaimed. "Ow. Where did that rock even come--?" She cut herself short of what she was saying as she caught glimpse of her hands.

Her skin was red, she had long claws instead of fingers, and they were so long too. She stood up and moved her hands to her face to check if anything else is different. She moved her hands up to her ears and found that they were very pointy. Then she felt that something was weird about her mouth. She traced a fing- claw along her teeth. She had fangs?!

She then frantically looked all around her body for anymore differences. She looked at her back and... was that a tail?! Poking out of her jeans was a tail, and not even her horse tail when she ponies up, it had no hair on it and an arrow pointed tip.

She looked at her hands again. They were shaking, and her breathing quickened. "What's happening to me?!" She began panicking.

This wasn't right. She shouldn't be here. Something has gone terribly wrong and Sunset had to find out what and then get out of here because she didn't like this, not one bit. She continued following the path, praying that an answer for her laid at the end of it.

Once she passed through the tunnel's exit, she was met with... a really long line. A line that consisted of some kind of monsters of all different shapes and sizes. Sunset looked out towards the front of the line but she couldn't even see the end of it. Whatever these monsters were in line for, it was definitely for something important. Likely, it's a place where Sunset can find some answers.

She took her place in line. Hopefully this won't be too long.

Sunset grumbled as she still stood in the line. She had been there for what felt like two hours and she could, only now, just see the end of the line. And when she looked the other way, where she came from, Sunset wasn't even able to see the end of that line now.

She tapped her foot impatiently. She was just about ready to lose her mind.

The line moved forward by one monster.

"That's it!" Sunset concluded. She stomped her way past all of the monsters in front of her, which caused some to get quite angry with her.

"Hey, watch it!"

"What ya think you're doin'?!"

"Back in the line, ya bitch!"

Sunset paid them all no attention and continued forward.

Soon enough, she finally reached the end of the line, much to the anger to literally the hundreds of monsters she had to pass to get here. She approached what looked to be some kind of receptionist.

"Welcome to Hell, enjoy your punishment," a monster on top of a white pillar said with a snotty voice, handing another monster a slip of paper. "Welcome to Hell, enjoy your punishment." It did the same thing with another monster.

This thing will have answers for her.

"Hey!" Sunset called out. "I got a couple questions to- oh my..." She was caught by surprise at this monsters appearance. It had a red head with horns and a snout and red arms, which seemed this place's equivalent of normal, but what caught her by surprise was the fact that the rest of its body was stone. This thing looked like a gargoyle partially free of stone.

"Move it or lose it!" another monster said, barging past her.

This caused Sunset to break out of her trance and she finally walked up to the front. She waited until this gargoyle thing was finished with another monster before she jumped in.

"Uh, hi there. You mind telling me what's going on? What is this place?" she asked, waving her hand in front of the stoney beast, blocking its view of the monster behind Sunset.

The gargoyle handed Sunset a plastic card, which she took. "Welcome to Hell, enjoy your punishment," it said blankly.

Now Sunset went from very to extremely confused. "Excuse me, hell?! What's going on?"

"Ma'am, please move. You're holding up the line." The gargoyle pointed towards the mile long line.

This guy was testing Sunset's patience. "Just tell me what's up and I'll go, come on."

"Get out of the fucking way!" someone from further back in the line screamed at her.

Sunset looked towards whoever shouted at her. "I've the right to know! So just wait another minute!" she shouted back. She looked back at the gargoyle with a happy expression as if nothing just happened. "So anyway, as I was saying..."

The gargoyle moaned loudly. "You really don't know? Well, if you haven't caught on yet, don't see how you wouldn't have, it's pretty frickin' obvious, you're dead."

Sunset's emotion took a complete one-eighty with her eyes wide and shrunk to ant size. "...dead?"

The gargoyle nodded. "D-E-A-D. Here look." It snapped its fingers and a giant book appeared on front of it. "Name please."

"Sunset Shimmer," she responded.

The gargoyle flip through what looked to be thousands of pages and landed a claw on one. "Here you are. Sunset Shimmer, age: twenty-one, died: two and a half hours ago, cause of death: a fully charged fireball directly to the chest, leaving a large gaping hole, killing instanly." The half petrified beast raised its eyebrows with surprise. "Huh, that's a new one."

Sunset looked down at her hands with shock. "I'm... dead?"

"Yes. Now please just move on." The gargoyle pointed towards the path behind it which lead into a town. "Doing this same thing of over a hundred thousand years really does a number of your irritability, so if you wouldn't mind..." It shooed Sunset away with a shit-eating grin.

Sunset gave it a slow nod and slowly walked down the path, not looking up from her hands.

She couldn't believe this. She was dead. During that battle she and her friends had with that being... it had killed her, and she was sent here. Hell.

Wait...

"I died... and I was sent to Hell?!" she raised her voice coming to the horrible realisation.

Why was she sent to Hell? What had she done that warranted her an afterlife in the underworld? What did she do that caused this?

Sunset froze where she stood, guilt and dread filling up her entire body.

Was it her because of her past actions? Did nothing Sunset do after she changed redeem herself of those mistakes? Was she always destined eternal punishment despite changing herself almost entirely?

Sunset fell onto her knees. This couldn't be real. She didn't die, she must have gotten knocked out and this is all just a nightmare. Soon she'll wake up and all of her friends will greet her with smiles and hugs. It made Sunset smile just thinking about.

She closed her eyes tightly and clenched her fists. She remained this way for a few seconds before opening her eyes again. Still in Hell...

She tried it again.

Nothing.

And again.

Unsuccessful.

She tried pinching her hand, slapped herself in the face multiple times. She even grabbed a stone that she found on the ground and jabbed it into her hand. It hurt a lot, no doubt, but it didn't wake Sunset up.

This really was real. Sunset Shimmer was dead.

Still on her knees, tears began to well up in Sunset's eyes. She brought her hands to cover her face and started to cry on them.

She had always imagined that she would live a long life or maybe even going out in a blaze of glory, but life just decided that wasn't to be the case and, before she could even realise it, she left without saying goodbye.

It just wasn't fair. She and her friends had grown so close to the point where they were more family than friends, and also harnessing the magic of friendship to spread their love with everyone else. And somehow that wasn't even close to enough for a better outcome?

"This isn't right," she quietly grumbled to herself. She stood back up with hands locked into fists. She casted a glare to the entire town just ahead of her and continued walking towards it. "No way this was what I deserved."

If it was one thing she learned from over the years, it was to never give up on what she believed in, and what she believed in... was a chance for a better afterlife.

This is something I'd like to continue with. But do let me know what you all think. This was quite something to work on after... let's just call it a hiatus from writing. I may be a little rusty after spending so much time away.