“May I tell you a short little story?
 
Once, there was this little filly. Grey, with a purple mane. She was a little quiet, and reserved… but she studied hard and always tried her best. The kind of filly that you might see in the far back corner of the school room, but you never really paid that much attention to me… her.
 
She wanted to be more than that. Other fillies would always tease her about being too much of a smarty, a loner… or Celestia forgive… a blank flank.
 
So, in a moment of brilliance, she decided she would be brave… and clamber into a cave with nothing but her wits and a small light to prove that she was more than just another braniac… but a brave pony who was more than a match for any other. And maybe she might even have gotten her cutie mark.
 
Oh how I was wrong that night.
 
I don’t remember much, except falling. The nightmares I have, it’s all I can see, surrounded by closing in fragments of stone that seem to crumble away into a void of darkness. I reach out to save that little filly… me… but always I am held back.
 
Sometimes she’s too far away… sometimes it feels like my back legs are made of stone… sometimes there’s even some sort of barrier that separates us. No matter what it is, every time she falls into the void, and I awake not knowing how to truly feel.
 
And yet, I am still alive.
 
I made a mistake, and I wish I could save myself from my own foolish younger self… but I guess what is in the past must stay in the past.”