I sat on the floor, cross-legged, and tried to meditate in order to calm my mind due to my lack of sleep. Funny, I would think I'd be used to it by now. I imagined peaceful sights, like a waterfall, or a forest. It was working for a time; my heart rate slowed, and I felt at ease. But one image flashed in my head. It then began to flash repeatedly. It was that pasture.

It was that dead pasture. I kept seeing all the dead grass, the bloody sky, and those accursed pillars. I could never forget those pillars. I could never forget the screams when I touched them.

The image of the pillars kept appearing in my mind, no matter how much I focused to try and keep them out. But then, the image of the pillars no longer showed. Now there was only the image of a face. It changed from the pasture into an evil, horrible-looking face with pitch black "skin" that looked like it was pulsating and moving, and the eyes and mouth were like that of a jack-o-lantern, just empty holes for eyes with a swirling, glowing, red-orange void behind them. The mouth had jagged, black teeth that surrounded the same void, and had dark smoke leaking out of the corners.

I tried my hardest to keep the image out, but it kept forcing its way back to the front of my mind. I couldn't do anything to stop it, so I stopped meditating immediately.

I opened my eyes. It was morning already. I was no longer in the guest room; I was in the kitchen with my hand in the silverware drawer. Apparently, in my frightful trance, I had been sleep-walking. I closed the drawer and looked out the window onto the apple orchard and saw that Big Mac and Applejack were outside doing what I assumed was "apple buckin'."

I put on some decent clothes and went outside to help them out.

"Hey, yer up," Applejack greeted me pleasantly.

"Morning," I said back, "What are we doing?"

"Well, you can come over here an' catch the apples in the baskets after I knock 'em down."

"Alright, well how are you going to knock them do-" Before I could finish my sentence, Applejack lifted her leg up and delivered an incredibly strong kick to the trunk of a tree, sending nearly all of its fruit to the ground.

"H-How did you do that?" I was astonished by her strength, "Oh, right. Earth beings are strong."

"Ya gotta be quicker than that, Nobody," Applejack teased, "And after ya fill the baskets, just dump 'em in the cart over there. Then you can put the empty ones under the next tree."

The next hour-and-a-half passed by calmly and sweatily. I would move empty barrels under a tree, Applejack would "buck" the apples out, I would unload them into a cart, and repeat. Big Mac and Applebloom worked on one half of the orchard while we took care of the other.

When we were finished, we went inside to cool down. There was a knock on the door. I answered it and saw Twilight. She had come to tell me me that all the preparations for the amnesia spell were ready, and Applejack came with me to see if the spell would work.

"Okay," Twilight said as she handed me a cup with hot tea in it, "I made this tea out of the ginkgo leaves. Just drink that and think about wanting to know your name. Spike! Bring in the candles, please."

Spike walked into the room with the box of candles and a book of matches. He still had that dopey grin on his face from yesterday, and his cheeks were a little flushed. He must have really enjoyed what went on in that closet last night.

"Aheh-heh... Here ya go, Twi..."

"What's got him so happy?" Applejack asked.

"I don't know; he won't tell me, but it must be good. He's been like that all morning," Twilight said. We all watched him blissfully stumble out of the room.

I drank the tea and focused while Twilight looked back at the spell and lit the candles. I sat on a table and assumed a meditative pose and focused on my name while I deeply inhaled the incense and let the tea take effect.

"Are you ready, Nobody?" Twilight asked. I nodded slowly as a reply.

"OK. Just focus on your name."

Her horn started glowing a pale pink color, and she put her hands on the sides of my head, closed her eyes, and touched her horn to my forehead. I closed my eyes.

The instant bone touched flesh, I no longer felt like I was on a table in Twilight's house; I felt like I was outside and sitting on... dead grass. I stood and looked around to see that I was back in that god-forsaken pasture. I saw those god-forsaken pillars, and I heard those god-forsaken screams.

I ran from the circle of detestable pillars, ignoring the grass and the sky and the sounds. I ran until I was sweaty and exhausted. I never stopped, and never looked back. But I was unfortunate enough to trip over my own feet and land on my hands and knees. Panting, I made a foolish and terrifying mistake: I looked back.

The circle was a mere three feet away from where I'd fallen. I stood up and screamed.

"AAAHHHHHH! WHAT DO YOU WANT?! GO AWAY!"

I ran up to it and started just punching it as hard as I could, even after I saw my own blood splatter on the queer obelisks. I looked at my still-clenched fists, to find that the bones in my knuckle were visible through the stained and torn skin.

I broke down. I collapsed to my knees and started bawling into my bloody hands.

"(sob)... What... What (sob) do you want? What do you want, huh?! WHAT?!"

Then, in the most terrifying three seconds of my life, all of the screams and cries and whispers were replaced by an abhorrent, nightmarish voice -a voice that sounded exactly like all of the whispers and voices in my head all rolled into one multi voice. And it said to me, "TO BE FED..."

The ground rumbled violently, and I looked up from my bloody weeping and saw that the circle of eight pillars was... rising!

I crawled away backwards, unable to take my eyes away from the horrific sight. The ring was pushing out of the ground, bringing with it more odd, black, stone-looking mass, and the pillars did not just form a large ring, it formed the horny crown of a nightmarish head, the same head I saw while meditating in Applejack's guest room. That black skin, those empty eyes, the jagged teeth, they were all an exact match. The inside of it all looked like that red-orange void. The beast had a massive and angular head. The thing had a very relatively thin neck, and I would have wondered how it held its head up if I hadn't been paralyzed by fear.

The thing stared at me with a wicked, ear-to-ear smile on its otherwise dead face. It leaned down and opened its massive limitless jaws, and as I stared into the red-orange, it engulfed me in its void.

Author commentary: ... And a skeleton popped out!