“Haaaaaaaaaaaaappy birthday, Gummy!”

Pinkie grabbed the tiny green gator with both her forelegs, holding him above her head and spinning. Gummy, as usual, was mute, but Pinkie’s smile paid him no mind as it shone brightly in the low light of her bedroom. The windows were covered by a thin curtain, tattered in places, letting only a hint of the morning light through.

“I hope you had a good sleep, because we’ve got a lot planned today. There’s gonna be cake and ice cream and dancing, and more presents than you’ll know what to do with!” Pinkie beamed upward at Gummy. Gummy, as usual, was mute.

“Come on!” Pinkie said, her voice bouncing off the walls. “Lets go downstairs and start the day.”

The stairs groaned as Pinkie dashed down them. The bannister in particular seemed to protest, wobbling and tossing flakes of its decaying wood into the air. Pinkie ignored it on her way down until she reached the final step, and a chunk of it broke off and splintered into her side as she leaned against it.

“Ow,” she said. She sucked her lip as she leaned to examine the damage. A sizable wooden spike jutted out of her dull, pink fur. Her hair hung over her eyes as she grabbed it with her hoof and wrenched it free.

“Ow,” she said again. Gummy, as usual, was mute.

“Come on, Gummy,” Pinkie said, walking from the stairs to the room she had set up. “Aren’t you excited? We’re gonna have an awesome party, just like we used to have! Just like... well, not like last year, that one was no fun... and not the year before, nopony decided to come, but they missed out, really, it was their loss...”

Pinkie’s voice became muttering as she walked past the doorway to her kitchen. The paint on the walls was mostly peeled away now. In one or two places on the wall, there were holes, about the size of a hoof.

A dark, deflated balloon hung from the kitchen ceiling. It sagged as Pinkie walked under it, casting one eye up beneath her bangs to look over its wrinkles. She blew a breath out of her nose and returned her eyes to the kitchen table.

There were familiar friends there for Gummy’s party. Madame LaFleur. Rocky. All the gang was there, just like old times.

Pinkie set Gummy in his special seat at the head of the table. She smiled at him, the edges of her mouth wiggling as they struggled to stay up. Gummy, as usual, was mute.

“Isn’t this great, Gummy?” Pinkie sat at the opposite end of the table. She reached forward to the plate she had laid out, chipped at the edges and, from the look of it, unwashed for months. The cake it held was an unappetizing, stale green.

Pinkie smiled across the table. Gummy, as usual, was mute, until his body shifted, slowly, from his slump against the chair to a full recline, and then a lazy roll sideways, off the chair, onto the floor where he landed with a loud thump.

Pinkie shot up in an instant. Her hooves picked the tiny gator up tenderly and cradled him against her chest.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her mouth turning to a frown. She held Gummy aloft and stared at him with wide, imploring eyes.

Gummy, as usual, was mute. A black hole stared back at Pinkie where one of his eyes had been. A worm wriggled slowly behind the other socket.

“You’re fine,” Pinkie said, and pulled Gummy close again.

The sun was removed from the kitchen as it had been upstairs, the windows shielded by dark, tattered curtains. Outside, the sun shone brightly, casting light over the whole of Pinkie’s house, crumbling at the edges, and broken elsewhere. The walls were marred by scratches and bricks thrown. The front-step was grown over with grass, untouched by visitors for years. Further away, the mailbox was stuffed with letters, filled to the brim and rusted shut by rain.

On the side of the house, somepony had written a single word in bright, pink, spray-paint, but it too had washed away in the rain.

Inside, Pinkie put Gummy back in his chair, and returned to her seat to take her first bite of cake.

It tasted the same as it had last year, and every year before for as long as she could remember. But at least she didn’t have to share it with anyone. Next Chapter: The Ocean and the Clouds Estimated time remaining: 3 Minutes