It’s been a nightmare, these last few months. I can see the ponies around me turning into monsters, but I can’t do anything about it. Their bodies, twisted into sick parodies, these horrible monsters, they come at all hours. They knock on my door, asking entrance, but I know what they really want. They want me.

“Oh Twilight, come out! It’s not so bad like this!”

They’re here again, and again, and again, they torment me. Fluttershy once told me about a kind of insect that lays eggs inside the brain of a mouse, taking over the body, using it like a puppet until the eggs are ready to hatch, then eats it from the inside out. I suppose that’s what happened to her. Poor, sweet little Fluttershy. Why must this always happen to the most innocent?

“We’re not gonna hurt you, Twi! We’re your friends, remember?”

Oh Rainbow Dash, if only that were still true. You gave me everything I could ever want as a friend, maybe even a lover, if we ever had the time, and now look at you. My Rainbow Dash. I should never have let them take you.

“Twilight! If you come out, we can have a party! I’ve got cupcakes!”

I know what those cupcakes are made of, Pinkie. You lured them out, didn’t you? You promised them safety, and happiness, and delicious cupcakes. Everypony knows that you make the best cupcakes. But I know who’s in the cupcakes. Did they laugh as you ripped them open? Giggle as you cut out their eyeballs? Perhaps chuckle when you wore your necklace of severed horns and wings? You’ve become a monster, and it’s all because I couldn’t convince you to be saved.

“Girls, Ah’m not sure about this, we’re prolly better off jus waitin fer the princess to get here.”

What’s that, Applejack? Princess? There are two princesses! Specify which one! And why? They… No. They haven’t been taken, they can’t have. They’re the two most powerful beings in all of Equestria, if anypony can escape, it’s them! You still can’t lie, no matter what you really are, that’s still the body of my friend Applejack, the element of honesty!

“My faithful student, I’m very disappointed in you.”

A burst of light, and I can tell Princess Celestia is behind me. She’s upset with me. That can only mean one thing. She’s been taken. I turn to face her, knowing that I can’t possibly escape. She’ll cast a spell on me, and they’ll take me too. I’m the last real pony. Rest in peace, Equus Sapiens. Rest in peace, harmony.

“Twilight Sparkle, do you realize what you’re doing?”

There she is. The terrible beauty of the sun itself, marred by the fury on her face. I try not to look at the ‘additions’. Those blasphemous augmentations to her perfect body, the loathsome new horrors that obscure her antediluvian grace. They really do make her more imposing, I suppose, but at what cost!

“You’ve taken it upon yourself to defy the law, the will of the ponies, and most of all, me. I can only hope, for your sake, that you have a very good reason for your actions?”

I don’t reply. I know the law. I know why it was passed. But I refuse to suffer under this accursed system, ruled by abominations out of time. No, even when all of Equestria is dust, when I’m mercifully released from this torment, from the walking corpses of my friends and family, I’ll defy you, monster. You cannot win.

“Twilight, answer me. I’d like to know why you did all this.”

I look her right in the eyes. I see the depths of the pit, the darkest reaches of Tartarus and the culmination of all the demons of Hell, behind her eyes. She did all of this. My teacher, my mother almost, possessed by this eldritch thing. Outside, I hear them again, the indescribable sounds of undead creatures, the putrefying corpses of my friends, as they try to get past my shield. The fetid, nauseating scent of my own sweat, my unwashed body, measured against Celestia’s rosy perfume. The sharp, jagged shadows of broken furniture, books, my mentor’s light turning the shapes into unspeakable monsters.

Finally, I answer.

“Because

I

Hate

Wearing

Clothes.”