In an instant my head is ringing, a sharp blow knocking me into the air. She doesn't let me land though, she pulls me by the leg, my body floating for a moment, before she grabs my head and slams my face into the ground. My vision blurs, pain racking my head, as she cackles maniacally.

"That was for forgetting. This next few, is to ingrain it even further!"

'W-Wha-" Before I can even finish that word I'm drowning, my lungs burning for oxygen, my body wracked in absolute pain while she grins.

"Now to really, 'sink' the message in!"

She brings her hands up, her perfectly manicured nails looking like small saws, and plunges them into my body to drag out my intestines.

"Eat up, Sammy boy!"

My jaw then opens, remaining open against my will as I am fed my own body, eating it against my will. Her face now resembling more of a devil's, her grin impossibly big, and her features distorting. My own private hell, custom made to kill me. For a brief moment, I regain enough control to stop eating, but it is not enough, and soon I have run out of my intestines to eat. She begins to repeat the process, each time, growing more and more forceful, and as I run out of organs, it becomes harder and harder to eat.

Even though she made me eat it, the organs themselves become harder to cut through, my teeth not exactly as they once were. Her once devilish grin turns into demonic anger, her warped features returning, somewhat, to their normal state. Even under her control, this is taking far longer than it should have. The first few organs took mere minutes to eat, but now I'm barely able to even touch what's in my mouth, my limbs and organs mostly gone. I finally have the chance to think, to reach back to how I got out of this last time, Tavi. But Marianna planned for that too.

"You really want to see your precious Tavi?"

She holds up a small hand mirror, examining it herself while she takes a pose as she smiles devilishly.

"Then take a look!"

As the mirror reflects 'me', I cry out in utter despair. My muzzle, smeared in blood, is Tavi's, my entire being is now her, and I'm forced to devour it, her still beating heart in my mouth.

"What's wrong? It's almost like you just found out you killed your lover or something."

She laughs, she laughs so hard, the sound echoing in the air and repeating in my ear as my mouth is forced to chew, my will breaking as I begin to make progress. I soon find myself unable to continue looking, and she decides to 'help' me with that.

"Oh, tired of looking already? Then instead of her heart, you can eat this!"

She quickly digs out my left eye, ripping it from its socket, a shriek of pain emanating from me before it gets stuffed into my mouth, forcing me to swallow. She follows through with the other, ensuring I am in excruciating pain as she begins to cut off my hair and ears, making sure to save one ear to taunt me with.

"I guess this is how it ends, cut up and fed to yourself." I feel my heart, once again forced into my mouth. "Good-"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

A baby crying halts her in her words, the sound sending a pulse through my destroyed body.

"Seems I forgot to kill something. Oh well, I'll go take care of it." In a flash, the arm I had eaten is now grabbing Mariana by the arm, the message clear.

"I got the message, now leave me and my family alone."

"No, I don't think you have."

As she tries to retreat, my fatherly instincts, asleep for so long, kick in. Before I can even think, I have punched her, Mariana, in the face, my body once again mine. She gets up, a crack forming on her face. The screaming from the baby, my foal, continuing to drive me forward.

"You don't have a right to this life anymore, why don't you just give it up and be done with it!"

"You said it yourself, 'this is not my life anymore'. I shared it with so many friends, and my new family. I cannot, and will not let you take me away from them. For so long as they want me at their side, I will be there. Especially for my daughter!"

I try to punch Mariana, but can't. Nothing stops my advance, except for her genuinely warm smile, something I have never seen on even the real Mariana's face. At once, everything disappears, the cry becoming more and more clear, until a flash brings me back into the real world.

"He's awake! My goodness, Sam, are you alright?"

Taking a moment to collect myself, I find myself in a hospital room, Tavi to my left in her own bed with our daughter, and our friends surrounding us.

"What's going on?"

"You fell back into your nightmare dummy!" Vinyl, standing to my right, her glare one of the scariest things I have seen in the real world. "You had us all worried sick. We thought we may lose you!"

"I thought you said it was done Sam?" Twilight, at Tavi's side, is genuinely worried, her eyes looking me over for any problems. With a deep breath I fall back into the bed.

"I thought it was too. I don't think it was the last one either though. I don't know how or why it is there, but it is changing. It's getting worse and worse with each trip there, but something tells me it is important. I-I don't really understand it. What about Tavi though, they said-"

"It was nothing. She had a fall in her vitals, but the doctor was over reacting due to the magical matrix your son had put up. They had no idea what was going on at first, and then when she dropped, they panicked. In the end, she was good to go without any additional care in under an hour.

“You, however, nearly died for a while. We were just being told they didn't know how much longer you could be kept alive when little Summer Song here started to cry loudly. Your heart rate started to soar and, somehow, you woke up.”

"I can say this much for a fact, I heard her cry and that is what woke me up. I don't know why I was able to hear her, or why it was what I needed, but it got me out of there...I need to be stronger though. Last thing I need is to worry my family now, right?"

Some laughs and chuckles, tears of happiness, and sighs of relief. I had once again escaped the darkness of the world, but surely it would always be there, ready to reclaim me if I should make the slightest mistake. Then I'm presented my daughter, Summer Song. She's beautiful, I thought I loved her before, but I instantly fell in love with this beautiful creature.

Her warm little body, snugly wrapped in a pink blanket, her soft, grayish-blue coat standing out completely. Her large, purple eyes, scanning my face as she identifies me as her father, reaching for me with her tiny, little hands. Then her giggles, those wonderful happy giggles. In an instant I smile, holding her close as I had been taught just a few weeks before. She reaches out, touching and exploring my face with her tiny hands. This is my daughter.

Several months flew by at an unprecedented speed. The world itself seemed to calm down, tensions growing higher and higher as the time of separation came closer and closer. But my daughter waited for no such thing before becoming the most important thing to me.

Most days I could be found just holding her in my arms, each enjoying the comfort the other brought. Her first words, spoken when she escaped her crib one night, were 'Dada'. I began to worry about spoiling her with all the attention I gave her, but I didn't want to become my father, so I let it slide for my little filly.

I even got a new job: I became the owner of a small restaurant that's a part of Vinyl's night club. It was an instant hit. It turned out to be a good investment as our money grew, and I began to finally see our lives moving on. There were still some rough times, especially when the princesses finally cast the spell to keep me in Equestria. It hurt so much I didn't go to work for almost a week. So you can imagine my surprise to wake up with Vinyl actually in bed with me. Imagine my surprise when I learned that she had apparently been sneaking in to see me like this the entire time I was out.

Everypony else checked in on me constantly, making sure that somepony was watching me the entire time. Even Vinyl was surprised to learn that they had planned things to allow for her to 'secretly' visit me. In fact, she had considered asking for all of us to bond together into a 'true herd' of two males and four to eight females.

In the end, we declined. Most of us didn't really want it, though Vinyl did get my signature to basically make us family. Vinyl is officially my sister, though I knew she wanted more. Problem being, her relationship with Tavi. She told me how, in high school, the two of them had really hit it off, but in the end, it felt like it was a 'friends with benefits' type relationship. Though they both wanted more from the other, they couldn't get passed it, the fact that they started as 'sex friends' keeping them from going further.

That was a few months ago though. Today, after a small celebration, we all step out to a small area of Sweet Apple Acres to watch the single greatest event unfold in the history of Equestria. While the worlds separate, a beautiful aurora will cover both worlds. When it dissipates, the worlds would be separated, and hopefully things would calm down in Equestria. Besides myself, a few other humans were allowed to stay, mostly those who, like me, had married a pony.

"Look, look, it's starting!" Little Apple Bloom, her red mane tied up in her red bow, her yellow shirt and suspenders scream farmer, just like her sister and brother. I can actually imagine it, after today, I can go back to how things should be. I can love my family, live my life in peace, and just, be happy. For once, everything seems to be going just right. As the aurora grows bright, it strikes me as odd. I have never seen the aurora before, but it seems weird. Thoughts constantly cross my mind and I can't understand them. Flashes, images, all of the seemed so...unreal. As I look around, fear invade my entire being.

"Sam, what's wrong?" Octavia asks, clearly worried about me holding my head.

"A light headache, getting worse...but...I am sorry if this is rude."

Her eyes widen, she runs towards me as she becomes less...real.

"Who are you?"

At that instant, an intense pain floods my mind, and the world dissolves around me until a blow to the head wakes me up.

"Shut up you snivelling shit! I have important things to do tomorrow and while I couldn't care less about you, I want my sleep! Fucking retard."

"Sorry Mistress Mariana, good night!"

With a smile on my face, whatever dream it was and the pain that came with it gone from my mind, I drift back into sleep on the floor, at the foot of my mistress' bed.

Author's Notes:

One chapter remains until the end.