When I step off the train, I’m not treated to the early-morning hustle and bustle of Ponyville or a somber welcoming committee of friends and loved ones. I’m not even treated to the sight of Ponyville at all. The moment my hoof comes into contact with the platform, a sense of unease fills my chest, and when I blink, all of my surroundings vanish.

“Oh come now,” a cruel voice whispers in the darkness. “Do you really expect to be free of me that easily?”

I glance around, a dark chill running down my spine. None of my surroundings look familiar. This barren field is strange enough, because Ponyville is always so full of life, yet as far as my eyes can see, I see only hard-packed dirt and a fog that seems to absorb all light. Up above, in the sky, the moon glares back at me, a jagged rent torn from its surface, scattering a glassy trail about the orbiting body to create the illusion of a maw spraying blood. How did I even get here? Where is here, for that matter?

The crunch of displaced dirt echoes behind me. I reflexively jerk my head in the direction of the disturbance, only to find the darkness swirling about ominously. Pretty disconcerting given how creepy this place. In fact, I’m reminded of a novella I once read. After all, there could be anything hiding in those mists: a lovecraftian horror that is more tentacle than body, or maybe insanity itself. It’s almost as though if I get lost in there, I will be driven as mad as a hatter. Hell, just being here is putting my mind ill at ease.

“Who’s there?” I whisper, acutely aware that my voice doesn’t seem to want to work. Again, something moves, this time in front of me. Once more, I turn and look, treated to only the sight of the dancing void. “Where am I?”

“Before it all, there was only I,” the voice taunts in a cloyingly sweet tone, “and after it all is gone, so too shall I remain.”

What? A fucking riddle—seriously? “Discord? Is that you?” I say, hoping I don’t betray the fact that I’m about to piss myself. “Listen, dude, I know you’re all big on the chaos and riddles thing, and I’ll be the first to admit that I love a bit of insanity as much as the next guy, but I would have hoped that you’re above tormenting a traumatized mare. Can you plea—”

The ground beneath my hooves begins to quake violently, and that voice screams. “You dare compare me to that madcap?” It occurs to me that with how loud the voice feels, my eardrums should have ruptured, yet it only feels like a thermonuclear warhead went off inside of my skull. Doesn’t that mean that whatever this thing is would have to be speaking inside my head? “I am the emptiness, the void, and eternity itself!”

“So, a presumptuous asshole. Got it.” I glare up at the moon, seeing as it’s the only thing around with a face. “I’m going to assume that you brought me here to torment me. How about just killing me instead?”

“There is no fun in death without pain, and there is always pain to go around,” the void purrs. “I would rather toy with you for a few billion years—and believe me, you will live that long.”

Shit. Why do the insane things always come to me? Lyra, the princesses, Aqua Regia, this. It’s like I’m a fucking crazy magnet. “I’m going to go with, nope. Seeya!”

At that, I bolt off into the dark mists. It’s my deepest hope that I’m running away from danger, rather than toward, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that in most cases it is less dangerous if you’re not out in the open. Were it not for the situation, I might even quote a certain song, but I’m more focused on staying alive and untortured.

For what feels like hours—although ideally it has probably only minutes—I run blindly through the darkness. There is no telling what is out there, and it would be suicide to find out what is. For all I know, this reality has the equivalent of Daedric Princes, and I’ve pissed off some fucked up equivalent of Vaermina, Hircine, and Namira, trapped in some pocket reality or nightmare, being hunted by some unknown horror.

“Oh, please,” it whispers. “Your attempts to understand me are so pedestrian.”

I shake my head, desperately trying to rid myself of the voice. The very sound of it is like ice water in my veins, and every time I hear it, my hooves grow heavy. My very being just wants to cease to be and begs for me to let the darkness come for me. That’s why I can’t stop moving.

Unfortunately, a sound out in the dark mists is enough to bring me pause. It’s ever so quiet, but there’s a soft keening coming from somewhere in the darkness nearby. A trick, no doubt. After all, this... entity said that it wants to torture me. What better way than to lure me into the maw of some sort of subterranean pitcher plant than to appeal to my need to help others?

The dirt crunches beneath my hooves as I peel off in a direction I presume to be away from the source of the wailing, hoping desperately that I’ll soon find my way out of this insane quagmire. No good can come of this place, ever.

“Nothing good comes from you, either,” that hateful bit of darkness teases. “Everything is about you, after all.” My best efforts to get away from the mournful sound are met with utter failure as I sprint through the darkness. The ominous, ever present noise only grows louder and more intense, regardless of the direction I move. “That’s right, you will see what I want you to; you will go where I command.”

I screech to a halt and wince as little pieces of gravel dig into my hooves, scraping the soft flesh of my frogs. “No,” I say in a wavering voice. With a defiant snort, I screw my eyes shut. “I am not your fucking plaything, nor will I play your sick game. I’m going to stand right here until you either come kill me, or put me back where you found me.”

A low, contemptuous chuckle filled my ears, momentarily overpowering the baiting cry. “I have my ways of ensuring that you play along,” the voice purred. “I hope you can play nicely with others.”

The words echo hollowly in my mind as I stand in the darkness, listening to that torturous lament. For an instant, another sound reaches my ears: wind through the treetops. Never mind the fact that no matter where I ran in the darkness, I never saw a hint of foliage. Where is it even coming from? It’s almost as though I can even feel it on my face.

Only... it’s not just the wind I’m hearing. There are voices in the wind. Quiet as whispers in my ears, their tone paradoxically sounds like shouting.

“Where is she going, Twilight?” one voice says from a direction decidedly behind me. Even with a certain degree of distortion, it almost sounds like Rainbow Dash, but... How could Twilight or Dash be here?

“I don’t know, Rainbow!” That’s definitely Twilight’s voice! There’s no mistaking that tone of annoyance. “We’ve got to catch her before she hurts herself!” I’m about to call out to them to help me when she continues. “It’s worse than it was before. We need to at least attempt to—” A gust of wind drowns out her words. “—Wind Whisper gets Life Flight.”

“Rainbow Dash, Twilight! Help me!” I scream out as my legs begin to tremble. “It’s so dark! I don’t know where I am, and whatever it is here wants to hurt me.”

Standing still here in the darkness, screaming, turns out to be a very bad idea. Something slams into me from the side with the force of a shotgun blast and sends me sprawling on my back. Before I even touch down, my assailant is on top of me, pressing the side of my face firmly into the gravel and holding my limbs in place.

The force of the impact is strong enough to shock my eyes open, but there’s nothing there. All that my eyes see is the dark mist surrounding me, taunting me.

I clench my jaw and await a killing blow, but none comes. It’s like my invisible assailant seems to be content just to hold me down. Or at least, that is my initial assumption. Something sharp and needlelike prods at the side of my neck, a sensation that I willfully struggle against.

“Get off of me! I won’t let you poison me!” I snarl, wrenching one of my hooves out of the creature’s grasp. With my limb free, I swing my hoof wildly above me in hopes of scoring a hit on my attacker. Though my hoof doesn’t connect with anything, a pained whinny echoes inside my mind and the weight holding me down vanishes.

There’s no time to waste on my back with my belly exposed; the instant I am free, I roll back onto my hooves and stagger away from the site of my attack. Blind and driven by panic, I run as fast as my four equine limbs will allow for. There’s no turning back, no back, no forward, or left and right in this seemingly dark hell, but still my direction is somehow decidedly away from everything else.

There’s nothing I’d like better than to cry out for help, even if I pose the risk of getting attacked. If I heard Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle, there’s no reason to assume that others aren’t also around, right? So what if I was hearing voices from between realms? If I can hear them, I can’t exclude the possibility of being heard. Fuck the danger of calling for aid.

“Somepony!” I scream, “Anypony, please help! I—”

The fog around me vanishes with a sickening sense of vertigo. Walls, those familiar walls, curve up around me. Beneath my hooves, the hard-packed dirt shifts and changes into hardwood floorboards. All around me, furniture sprouts up from the floor and alcoves sporting bedrolls carve themselves into the wall, giving the room a very familiar look.

“No, not here!” I croak. “Not now!”

From a single point on the ceiling, rivulets of blood begin running down the walls. It pools and writhes almost eagerly around my hooves as the room is bathed in red. In mere moments, the crimson tide rises by inches before stopping as quickly as it began.

There isn’t even a chance for me to wonder if the end has come. Like some horrific occurrence of abstract gravity, the ocean of red gathers, coagulating into a single amorphous clot larger than even myself. The great crimson lump quivers in tune with my heartbeat, and I watch in mute horror as flecks of jellied gore fall away.

My own blood goes gelid as the mass slowly assumes the form of two ponies, locked in coitus, thrusting away even as they take shape. “No!” I cry helplessly as the golems of blood and viscera assume faces from my memories. “Stop this!”

“Why would we do that?” the top golem says over wet slaps, wearing Aqua Regia’s face and voice. With a sickening squelch, Aqua Regia caves in on herself and gives way to Lyra. “We’re just showing you what you already know.”

I glance down at the bottom creature, retching as its face continually shifts between Ice Blossom and myself. “After all, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Blossom’s voice floats free from bloody lips.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

“You will,” the things promise, both sporting my face and voice. Like a recently pecked toad, the bloody monsters bloat and bulge. They grow ever larger, losing their equine shapes, looking more like a giant cyst than a threat. “We hope you like yourself, because you’ll be seeing a lot more of you.”

The clot explodes, showering the room with hoof-sized chunks of coagulated blood and viscera. Only... that’s not what the really chunks are. Tiny, hatchet-wielding pegasi bearing a striking resemblance to Rainbow Dash—or is it me?—take form from the mess. Hundreds of them, some of them even on me fill the room, and all of them have a hungry look in their eyes.

With an inequine shriek, the swarm descends upon me. Their heads swing wildly as they hack and slash with their weapons of bone, scoring the of flesh of my body. Pain erupts across my body as these angry little mes carve gashes into my face, neck and torso.

Blind abandon overtakes my faculties, and I sprint headfirst into the door, shaking the angry midgets from my body as I run. To my great surprise—and relief—the door is not solid at all, simultaneously stripping me of my murderous passengers and placing me outside of the hospital.

The first thing I notice upon appearing outside the hospital is that I’m once more wearing the platemail of a royal guard. Ash falls from the sky like snow around me, and I see Wind Whisper making her way down the street, the gold of her armor tarnished and graying where the ash accumulates.

“Help me, please!” I cry, trotting after her. “This place... I think it’s trying to drive me crazy.”

The sergeant halts in her tracks. A prickle of danger-sense goes down my spine as she turns to face me, and I immediately regret getting her attention. The fur and flesh vanishes from her body in a puff of ash, leaving behind a skeletal mask. Turning on me, I see her eyes have an almost greasy, boiled look about them.

Her mouth opens, and a laugh like fingers sliding along guitar strings floats free. One bone hoof points at me, or rather past me. I almost don’t want to look to what the skeleton guard is gesturing toward, but it occurs to me that, whatever I do, I’m going to see what this dark realm’s keeper wants me to see.

“Don’t look, Silver!”

My head turns a fraction of an inch, and various incarnations of... me are standing to one side the hospital entrance. All of them are dressed in fancy ‘noble’ clothes, and all of them hold picket signs. The signs themselves remind me of what I’d seen on my way to Blossom’s funeral. ‘Delusional’, one sign proclaimed, while another declared me as ‘Self-centered’ and a ‘Narcissist’. Evidently, the signs were just as twisted as the rest of this reality, as their words transform and tell me ‘Die’, and ‘You belong in hell’.

Unlike the time in reality, there is no crowd of ‘supporters’ picketing about world revolution. The side of the door opposite the picketers with the hateful signs is populated only by ruined corpses. One copy of me lay decapitated, her severed head sitting in the entrails of her drawn and quartered neighbor. Another looks as though her flesh has been partially digested, while the last has been impaled on her own rigid spine.

I turn back to the skeletal Whisper in order to ask why she’s showing me these things, but she is gone. In an instant, the scenery around me flashes and rearranges itself into the hospital cafeteria, darkened by the apparent evening outside. All of the tables but one are occupied by filly-like clones of myself. The odd table out, on the other hoof, is occupied by Celestia and Luna.

“Please, come sit with us, Soren,” Luna says, beckoning me forward with one hoof. “We have a wonderful gift for you.”

I want to scream and run away; these aren’t really the princesses, and whatever ‘gift’ they have, I won’t want any part of. The choice to run, however, is taken when not-Celestia’s horn is surrounded by an oily-black aura. Of its own volition, my body inches forward one trembling hoof at a time.

When I’m seated directly across from them, not-Celestia gives a horrific, rotted grin. “Thank you for joining us, Soren,” she says. “We wanted to thank you for all the advice you’ve given us in regards to how to run our country, so we got you this.”

A large hatbox, covered in what looks to be oil and blood, rises out of the tabletop, and Luna raises an eyebrow. “We do so hope you like it.”

“Don’t open it, Silver!”

The desire to run and hide once again flits through my mind, and for the shortest of moments, my body almost obeys me.

“Open it! Take what we deserve!” the crowd of mes shouts. “This is our gift to us!”

One shaking hoof rises against my wishes, and pushes the lid off of the box. As much as I don’t want to see what is inside, not-Celestia’s horn glows that inky-black once more, and my body leans forward, directing my eyes into the box. Inside the box sits a crown woven of razor wire. It is only now that I realize that Celestia and Luna aren’t wearing their normal regalia.

“Silver, run!”

The crown of thorns, for lack of a non-biblical description, rises out of the box in a cloud of blood corresponding to the aura around not-Luna’s own horn. I can only watch in paralyzed horror as the thing floats above my head. Their mouths move in unison when they say with a single voice, “You seem to have such wonderful ideas on how to fix our world, so we want to make you the princess.”

“Snap out of it, Silver Script!”

It is already too late. The moment the crown touches down on my head, it begins to spread and grow like wildfire. Vines of razorwire snake across my body like angry serpents, tightly binding and slicing my flesh. I try to scream in agony as the wire begins to force its way into my rectal and vaginal orifices, but the wire is so tight around my throat that the only thing to flee my mouth is a torrent of blood. It just continues to slice and grow, slice and grow, until finally the only parts of my body left uncovered by wire are my eyes.

Suddenly, I feel a pinprick on my neck and the pain goes away, replaced by blissful numbness. My body is no longer wrapped in razor wire, and I am no longer in the hospital cafeteria in Canterlot.

Instead, I find myself in the middle of a forest clearing, Rainbow Dash holding me down. I’m... safe, I realize as Twilight steps into my field of view with Lyra. Both of them look so worried. Even Dash looks tearful.

“Guys, help me,” I try to say around a mouthful of blood, choking slightly as some of it goes down my throat. Why can’t I breathe through my nose? “I think... I think I’m going out of my mind. I-I need help. Please, just get me help.”

Lyra just nods sullenly, leaning down to nuzzle my neck as Dash gets off of me. “I know,” Lyra whispers. “You scared the entire town half to death.”

Through blurring eyes, I watch Rainbow Dash shoot off into the air and start waving wildly, as if trying to catch somebody’s attention. It’s funny, but I can almost swear that the first pony to join her there is... Ice Blossom. It can’t be her, though. She isn’t—

A wave of lethargy washes over me, and my head slumps back into the dirt. It can’t be Ice Blossom, because she isn’t a pegasus; she’s an angel...

“I love you, Ice Blossom.”

The therapist sits down on the snowy bench beside me without a word. Nothing needs to be said, really. I skipped out on our regularly scheduled appointment in order to... do what, exactly? I honestly don’t even know why I came out to the courtyard garden in the first place. It’s winter, after all, and there’s snow everywhere.

“Good morning, Doctor O’Hannigan,” I say, turning to face the griffon. I’ve been here for almost a month, and I’m still not used to an idea that a griffon doctor can work in the Ponyville hospital’s mental ward, and yet ponies here are still uncomfortable around them. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I? Because I missed our appointment?”

Rather than sounding angry—the doctors here rarely ever spoke out of anger, so it’s unsurprising—or at all disappointed, he sounds amused in his response. And of course he does that queer beak smile that griffons can do. “Not at all,” he replied cheerfully as he idly packs some snow into a ball. “We know that your medication can make some of our patients forgetful, and because of that, the doctors here at Ponyville Hospital always have contingency plans for such occasions.”

My ears flatten against my head, and I can’t help but look away out of guilt. “I didn’t exactly forget about our appointment, Doc,” I admit, ruffling my wings beneath my patient’s gown. “I came out here for something, but I can’t remember what. I’ve been out here since then, trying to remember.”

His demeanor sheds some of its cheerfulness as he watches my expression. “That means you’ve been out here for at least an hour in the snowfall.” He places a claw on the exposed part of my neck and shakes his head. “Aren’t you cold at all?”

A smile creeps across my face as I turn my gaze back up to the sky. An ashen mare with blonde hair tends to the clouds without a care, and I in turn watch her there. “Not really. I mean, sure, the snow is cool to the touch, but there’s no real wind chill,” I comment, pushing a pile of snow off the arm of the bench and lowering my head to it. “It’s what I used to think of as wintertime ‘shorts and t-shirt weather’ back on Earth; it’s cold but not uncomfortable.”

“Are you thinking about home a lot?” he asks, throwing his ball of snow across the garden and into the frozen fountain. “I know the Hearth’s Warming holiday season is often depressing for patients.”

“Tch, home,” I grumble, fixing the doctor with a sideways glare. “I’m not even sure I have a home. Remember now, my parents disowned me, doctor. Even with Lyra, Bon-Bon, and Honeydew, I sometimes wonder if I actually belong... in Equestria at all, even.”

“You do not think you are welcome here any longer.” It’s not a question, but more of a general statement from the doctor, as if phrasing out loud what will go into his notes. “Is it about what happened in Canterlot?”

It takes me a few moments to put together what he means. A number of things happened to me in the capital, and all of them give me reason to feel uncomfortable. “Do you mean how delusional I am—was?”

“Yes,” he confirms. “You didn’t leave the capital in the best of mental health, and your state of mind did skew your perception of reality.”

He means my delusions of grandeur, then. The mistaken belief that I had somehow pioneered a revolution or uprising. Yeah, Celestia and Luna are actively undergoing an inquisition into how corrupt the nobility actually is and what can be done about it, but there haven’t been any public demonstrations of dissent. I’m not even entirely sure that there were ponies with signs outside the hospital on the day of the funeral.

“A lot of that is still kind of foggy,” I say. “Some things still seem so real in my mind, and I still doubt which is actually real. How much of what happened was simply a result of my frayed mind trying to make everything about me, so that I wouldn’t feel insignificant in the world at large? Like, did C—Princess Celestia actually try to ask me about how government functioned in my world? Or did I cryptically spout off something about democracy in the middle of the cafeteria and confuse the hell out of her and those around me?

“And what about my trip to Helping Hooves clinic?” I asked rhetorically. “Did I actually see my rapist, the donor for the foals growing inside me, regressed to a childlike state?” I shake my head. “More than that, I can’t help but think whether or not I somehow left her so brain damaged when I broke off her horn that she can’t even face trial. What if she’s not even aware of the crimes she has committed now?”

Is that really what bothers me? Am I really so hateful in hoping that she isn’t brain damaged enough to be punished? Am I really thinking that so that I don’t have to feel guilty about wishing the death penalty on someone who might have been rendered incapable of understanding what they’ve done?

Could I even wish death upon a child or someone with the mental capacity therein? I suppress a shudder at the thought and look down at my own belly. I can no sooner harm or wish harm upon a foal than I could bring myself to abort Aqua’s children when I found out I was pregnant.

“I’m uncomfortable because I’m not sure I can trust the legal system to do what is right,” I say with a quaver, after giving the doctor a momentary glance, “because I’m not even sure what right is anymore—”

I lost my mind out of grief and hatred. There are so many things that could have happened when I ran through Ponyville in the midst of a colossal mental breakdown. Who might I have hurt? What if I had killed somepony? What if I had hurt a foal? Would I be any better than Aqua if I had? Was she not out of her mind when she raped me and murdered Ice Blossom?

“—and the more I stay here, and the more I talk with you, Doc,” I continue, “the less I feel angry at the one mare I have every right to. Hell, the more I think about it, the more I actually do pity her.”

Looking at him with tears in my eyes, I ask, “How fucked up is that? She took everything from me, and I pity her?”

The doctor stares at me quietly for a few moments before smiling at me. “It sounds like you’re beginning to work past your grief and rationalizing everything rather than simply lashing out in anger,” he offers. “At any rate, I would like you to think about what we have discussed here this morning for our next session. Aqua Regia is clearly on your mind, and it is good that you wish to discuss it.

“For now, however I want you to go inside and warm up,” he concludes, tilting his head toward the door. “We allow you many privileges because you are so eager to help the ponies and staff here, but you’re still technically on self-harm watch, and sitting out here in the cold like this is hazardous to your health...”

It’s an idle threat made in good spirits, and one I can manage a self deprecating laugh for. “Sure, I show up all cut up and battered from a trip through mental hell, and everybody makes a joke about it,” I reply drily. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve, and... Merry Christmas.”

Returning to my room, I take a seat at my writing desk—how is it like a raven?—and quickly pull out a sheet of parchment from the drawer. There’s a lot I need to write down while it’s still fresh in my mind, and all of it needs to be said. Dipping a fresh quill into my pot of ink, a ball of guilt forms in my stomach.

Dear Dr. O’Hannigan,

If you’re reading this letter, and I’m not here, there is a very real chance that I might not be coming back at all. I’m not running away or anything like that. I’m not even leaving the boundaries of Ponyville. There’s something I need to do to help somepony, and it might cost me my life.

Firstly, I want to apologize for lying to you. I knew fully well why I was outside this morning, and why I missed our session. I was out there because I was trying to convince myself not to go through with what I am about to do. I’m not telling you what, because this is something that I alone can—must—do.

I also apologize for taking advantage of all the privileges that I have been granted. In allowing me access to my alchemical stocks and equipment in order to prepare potions for the staff and the patients, I was able to get the one thing I needed. I’ve been sitting on this for more than a week, waiting for the right opportunity, and the time is now.

I must also apologize for risking my life and the lives of my two foals. This in itself is the sole reason I wanted to convince myself not to do this. When I found out I was pregnant, I—

A tear drops onto the parchment as the conflicting emotions I felt that day return to the surface. Elation at the thought of bringing new life into the world. The despair of bearing the spawn of my rapist. Regret at the fact that they couldn’t have been Blossom’s. The joy of achieving a dream I’d once put off as impossible. Surprise at being pregnant despite being told by Celestia that I wouldn't be. The anxiety of whether or not I would be a good mother. I am feeling all of these now, but there is another emotion added to the stack: fear, not only of my own death and those of my unborn young, but also of the failure that will result if I am wrong about all of this...

—felt so many things. Chief among them, the desire to make sure that they got the upbringing Aqua never got. In the faith I was brought up in, abortion was a great sin, and I still find myself thinking that what I am doing is a sin. But maybe, if my sin releases another from her suffering, maybe I will be absolved in the afterlife. I want you to know that I do this not in the interest of self harm, but in the promotion of life.

Please, if this is the last I ever say, I want you to let Lyra know that in spite of all that has happened, she is absolved of everything in my eyes. I want a third of my accumulated funds directed toward Honeydew’s education. She needs a chance to be all that she can be.

The rest of my money, and my research, I want dedicated to the continued betterment of alchemical medical science. There are so many things I wanted to do but might never have the chance to. If my research can give hybrid fillies, like Aurora, a chance at a full and healthy life, then I feel I will be vindicated regardless of whether or not I live or die.

Aurora... Just the thought of the filly brings up another doubt. If I live through what I have planned, what of my foals? I don’t know anything about Punnett squares, or what the odds are that my foals might be born hybrids, or what the chances are that they would be born with the same condition that gave that little winged unicorn cancer? My research could be the key...

In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Nopony will be able to stop me from doing this, and I can only hope that I succeed. I only hope that you can forgive me for this.

~Silver Script

P.S. Sorry for the distraction.

With a gentle flap of my wings to fan the parchment in order to speed up drying, I begin rooting through the bottom drawer of the desk to find my oversized jar of ink. You’d be amazed what sort of things you can hide in a big jar of black fluid. Nopony really thinks to look in such a place in part because of obviousness, and partly because of how messy it can be. For example, nobody thinks to look for a misplaced key or two full alchemical flasks in the ink because of how innocuous it is.

Ever so carefully, I twist off the cap partway, just enough so that I can catch the hidden string with the tip of my hoof before removing the cap the rest of the way. The key to the recreational art supplies closet comes out first. Oh, there is a hyperactive filly who would very much like an early Christmas present like this.

Removing the flasks, I smile. This has been a long time coming. Were my life a story, the readers would share an opinion with me. It’s about time. Pound Cake, you’re going home.

Author's Notes:

Welp. Here we are at the end of a timeskip following another gigantic mindfuck hallucination/psychotic episode. The hurt is now complete, and the healing can begin. Next chapter, an event that's been in the making more than a year now.

I want to apologize for how long it has taken for all of this to be posted and written. As mentioned in my blogs lately, I've had to dance around a bit of a writing slump, as well as random interference with writing time and the editing hours of others. That's all out of the way now.

For this chapter, I have E3gner, Fourpony and ReFro to thank for editing this time around. Sorry, NightmareKnight. I know I gave you an edit call, but I haven't really heard anything from you since then, and I really needed to get this out there.