Written By: Rdasher12
Edited by: Dreadnought
I live my afterlife one day at a time. Most of these days have been uneventful, always falling into the same routine: I wake up, have breakfast with my parents, walk and goof off all day, have dinner with my parents, and then hang around until I go to bed.
Living in an empty realm isn't very fun or interesting, but I make do with what I have. And on this one particular day, everything changed...
I wake up with a sharp gasp for air as if I had just experienced a nightmare. I'm sweating a bit, but I guess it's no big deal. Although sweating because of a dream like that is weird, as that was no nightmare. It was quite the opposite in fact. It felt so real, so... vivid. It was as if I was reliving the best memory of my old life at that point, which it was.
The details of the dream are beginning to fade, but I quickly put them back into place before they diminished completely and I replay it in my mind to the best of my ability.
After ten minutes of walking, I found the box that managed to stay a prominent figure in my head. So prominent in fact that I don't think I would've been able to sleep that night if I hadn't gone back there for some closure. I looked over at the object. it was an ordinary, brown, cardboard box. Nothing more, nothing less.
As I got closer, however, I noticed something bright inside of it that made my heart jump, due to the unexpectedness and... well, general confusion.
I expected nothing more than a few knickknacks, or with my luck, just some old socks. Needless to say, I was surprised, and now I found myself feeling rather curious and intrigued. It wasn't every day that I got the chance to see a color as bright and joyful as the cyan that I found myself staring at, that wasn't fake or animated in some way, shape or form.
Of course, by living in the decaying suburbs of Detroit, the only colors I was accustomed to seeing were the boring brown, much like the color of the cardboard box, and the faint yellow of the dead grass that covered half of the sidewalk. Then again, those were the only colors I'd ever seen, the only colors I'd ever see.
Or so I thought.
In all of my thought, I had reached the cardboard box. At this point, I had countless questions waiting to be answered. As much as I wanted to ponder on all of this, I knew it was time to put my mind out of its misery, and see just what was inside of this box.
I forced out all thought to finally focus on what I'd come out here to do, get closure. At that point, all I'd done for myself was make more unanswered questions. After what felt like an eternity, I fully opened the box and examined what was inside.
This was where I currently stood: looking into a box at what my brain was taking as a simple toy, left to die along with everything else on the block. But, my heart was taking it as something that I wanted to believe so badly, but found it impossible to.
Until I saw it breathing. In fact, it appeared to be sleeping.
My hands are sweating, my breathing's erratic, and I'm blinking my eyes trying to refresh my vision.
Each time, the image stays the same. Inside, was a sleeping... filly... Rainbow Dash.
I kneel down, trying to get a closer look into the box. I can't believe what I'm seeing. There is not a physical, mental, or extraterrestrial way how this could be here... how she could be here, in my gloomy, dark and horrid world. I examine the box further, and on the side in simple pen says "Give to good home."
One of the many things that popped into my mind besides the initial "Filly Rainbow Dash in a box" was the realization that the closure of finally knowing what was inside the box, only gave me so many more questions. How did she get here? Why is she here? Why is she a filly? Examining what I was starting to think was a vision that I'd gone crazy after so many years of solitude, I saw that her flank was even barren of her cutie mark, proving she was indeed a filly.
Along with those questions came another that I didn't even know where to begin with. Although literally none of them had any realistic answer, at least I could make up one with the logic of My Little Pony, which was something. But, who would give up a filly Rainbow Dash?
All of the many questions were making me feel dizzy, so I stood up, or at least tried to, in hopes it would alleviate the nausea. But, being my clumsy self, I accidentally tapped the side of the box with my foot, and the inevitable occurred: she woke up.
I open my eyes, as that was all that I recall from the realistic experience.
Lately, I've been getting dreams that resembled the more memorable bits of my life, whether they were for better or for worse. But they would always have something off about them, like most dreams. For instance, the house I resided in so long ago might be distorted in some way, or in extreme cases, made out of gingerbread. The sidewalk crumbling beneath my feet might be purple, instead of its usual grayish concrete color. This got annoying to me rather quickly, always having my cherished memories tarnished in one way or another.
But this one was different. For starters, it'd finally caught up to when I was twenty-two. It'd been a few days since I'd gotten one, with the last memorable thing having not happened since four years prior when my parents died. That was certainly one of the worst memories I had in my life. The worst up to that point, at the very least.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, that memory was the first one that I had with my Dashie, regardless if she remembers it, or not.
Second, nothing was out of context this time. It went exactly as it'd gone when it really happened. Was it because it was Dashie? Maybe in some strange way, my brain recognized just how important she is to me and didn't make something silly out of it? If that's the case, I'm very thankful for that.
Now, I feel like I really shouldn't, but I miss Dashie very much. As much, and if not more than I did when she was first taken away from me. No... when Celestia and Dashie's friends came to take her back home. How can I be so selfish? Just like I was when they retrieved her, back when we inhabited my world.
The day was September 17th, 2027, or as I like to call it, Dashie's twentieth birthday. It's been over nine years since that day. That is, nine years Equestrian time.
According to the note that Dashie left for me on that day, the one she later changed with her old magic: One day in Equestria is about a week and a half on Earth, give or take. I suppose I can calculate just how many years have passed on Earth. But I'll come back to that later, it's not important right now.
To be honest, those nine years quite literally flew by. Although, the horrible six month time period that I was prepared to end with a six-foot rope and my chandelier felt like an eternity. I had the only thing that gave me a reason to keep on living in that world taken away from me, with hardly any warning. There were still so many things I wanted to do with her, that I thought I'd never get the chance to do again.
There were times when I wanted to end it, but I knew I couldn't. I knew Dashie wouldn't want me to, I knew that she would've wanted me to live on.
Now, I don't know if it was obvious, but back when we were first separated, there laid a lonesome thought in the back of my mind that there might've been some miraculous way that I'd get the chance to see her again, even if it was only for a few seconds. That thought was probably one of the few things that kept me going for those months. I didn't even have to see her, just knowing that she was somewhere out there with all of our memories would've been enough.
But even with that said, I just wanted to hold her in my arms so badly. As much as the determination of a mother grizzly bear defending her cub. If anything got in the way of her cub's safety, whoever was getting in the way stood no chance of getting out of the situation in one piece. Much how if anyone got in the way of me getting to my Dashie. Thankfully it never did come to that, although there were some close calls.
But anyway, back to my point. That lonely sixth month period felt about as long as the first four years of my life in Equestria, back when the only ponies who knew of my existence there were my two closest friends.
No, that's not right, one of my closest friends, and my daughter, my Dashie. The sole reason that I left what could've been a normal life back on Earth, and that was the best choice I believe I'd ever made. Well, besides going back for the box, that was hands down the most important decision I had ever made in my entire existence as a human being.
The choice that I made lead to the path of the happiest life I could've ever hoped for, while the other path would've continued down Dreary Drive. Dreary Drive would've reached a dead end shortly after that...
What I mean is, if I had chosen not to go back for that box, I probably would've gotten here within a year of that very day.
Just after that time period ended was when somehow, someway, Princess Celestia found out about my existence there. Maybe Pinkie told somepony, who then told her? No, I shouldn't be so quick to judge her like that. She "Pinkie" promised, after all. Celestia probably just had some vision, like she always did.
Man, that sure was some walk down memory lane. I feel happy whenever I think about my life, but I also feel sad for obvious reasons. "Life" here in the afterlife, isn't as good as everyone made it out to be, but of course it isn't. After all, how could they've known what it was really like up here? I don't blame them for my mild disappointment.
Don't get me wrong, though, life here isn't bad. I live in this awesome house with my parents. As a matter of fact, it's an exact replica of the house I was born in, and the house both Dashie and I were raised in. Even better, it's what it was like when they first bought it, newly built! Even the furnace is brand new. Well, not that you'd need it anyway. The weather here is a constant sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, so there's no need for heaters.
I do miss the house that I bought when Dashie and I moved, but apparently, I won't be going without it forever. My parents told me about this interesting process that happens as each generation comes through. They said that before I came along, they both lived in this house alone, which makes sense. If you're married, then you have a replica of the first house that you and your spouse lived in together, and they looked to be twenty.
What's kind of cool is that when I did come along, since I was never married, I got to live here due to the fact that I never had a wife to share a house with. And that's something that I never have, and never will regret.
When the next generation comes through, the newest "members" will be twenty, which will move me up to thirty, and finally, my parents moving to forty, which is awesome. Dashie and I will be able to play together, forever without me slowing down the fun because "I'm getting older."
Along with the age, comes my house. Wait no, our house. It was as much hers as it was mine, and nothing would ever change that. She took care of it just as much, and as well as I did.
Anyway, the process makes plenty of sense, if it weren't like this, then you'd have hundreds of past family members crammed into one house!
Thinking of that makes me chuckle, my grandfather never liked cramped spaces, and he would always get cranky whenever he had to be in one for whatever reason.
Now that I think about it, I have no idea where my grandparents are. I mean, it makes sense for them not to be in this house, but my parents never even brought them up.
I didn't get to see them very often in person, they both passed away a year or so before I found Dashie, in a car accident. I guess it ran in the family for a while!
Usually, it'd be rude to make that kind of joke, but seeing how we're all dead, only makes it seem all the funnier. I guess I'll have to ask them about it during breakfast.
I look at the time, and I'd accidentally been daydreaming for nearly an hour now. "My, how time flies." I sit up and stretch, then I get out of bed after hearing that satisfying "pop" in my back. I rub my eyes and yawn, and upon smelling muffins, eggs, and something that I haven't had in over a decade, bacon, I walk downstairs for breakfast.
"Good morning, Mom. Is that really what I think it is, sizzling over there?"