>You can't sleep.
>Maybe it's your shitty sleep schedule, or what you ate for dinner, or even the little oscillating ping of a headache that drips like water in your too-big head.
>Or maybe it's fear.
>Of the unknown? Maybe. No man can know it all, especially when his mind has been shoved into another world.
>Of death in your sleep?
>No, you haven't been afraid of death for years.
>The place you came from was hell, and when it finally happened all you felt besides the unbearable pain was relief.
>You didn't know it then, but you know it now.
>Not even Twilight knows you're otherworldly.
>You keep your grades modest and ask her for help on your homework like you asked your mom for help on studying for your history tests when you were little.
>She always called you Doodlebug, a name you never thought twice about.
>Some time in high school, you learned that it's a name given for a way of movement, one that makes doodle marks in the sand.
>That of an antlion.
>To this day, that past realization still swims in your head on occasion.
>You're not sure if she knew, despite her extensive knowledge of human anatomy you don't recall her having much interest in arthropods.
>But even so, the name fits now more than ever...
>A facade of whimsy with a dark nature.
>You readjust your position in bed, hugging your blanket tightly.
>It's cold, but you don't deserve the warmth.
>In the time after she passed, you changed into something you doubt she would be proud of.
>You feel more awake than you did when she was there to guide you, but...
>You haven't felt consistent happiness since the day before you found out she was going to die.
>Everybody has to grow up some day, and everybody has to wake up too.
>Better you did you surmise, you could've been a manchild or worse without a catalyst...
>Could've been anything, really.
>But now the resin has hardened and, whatever bubbles or little perfections came out of the mold will probably take some work to take out.
>You weren't like the other fillies, and it showed.
>Purple had noticed your emotional distance despite your best efforts, and you'd gone to a shrink.
>Fed him some nonsense, wasn't too terribly hard to make up a convincing story.
>After all, you fantasized about this all once upon a time.
>After all, you're Lone15.
>And at 6:00 in the goddamn morning, you're still not asleep.
~Fin