“What happened?”

It’s strange how hindsight can leave its wounds so deep. You think you’re doing everything right, that you have it all under control. Then you look back and see the full scope of what you’ve done and realize you couldn’t have been more wrong. It hurts more than any knife wound. It's the cold, jagged clamp of reality crashing down on your chest.

“Sweetie Belle, what, happened?”

I could’ve sent Apple Bloom back at any time, kept her away from Alda, but no. For some God forsaken reason I didn’t have the foresight to see she might try to hurt or manipulate her. I shouldn't have taken her out there in the first place.

“Sweetie Belle!” Big Mac grabs my shoulders. “What, happened?”

I tilt my head up, glance straight into his desperate, quivering eyes. I scramble words and reconstruct the lie I gave to the nurses earlier. “We-We went into Everfree forest. Apple Bloom and I got separated. I heard her scream, and then… found her running from a pack of timber wolves. We managed to outrun them somehow, but Apple Bloom was hurt. One of them bit her hoof, and her arm got all ripped up when she pulled it out. She passed out once we got away, and I carried her all the way over here to the hospital.”

Big Mac stares at me for the longest time. His face is writhe with worry, his lip curves with the slightest bit of anger. “What were yah’ doin’ in Everfree so late at night to begin with?”

Images of the ritual and Alda’s smug face flashes in my mind. My head wilts, I cover my face with my hooves; partly to strangle the tears, partly to hide my frustrated expression.

“Sweetie Belle, what were you doin'? Answer me!” His voice comes like a wild fire. It’s frightening to see the usually so quiet farm pony turn to anger like this. I search for a valid response, I garner more of his ire with every second of silence.

“They were looking for me.”

Scootaloo walks in behind us, breathing heavily and taking off her helmet. “I-I had gone into Everfree earlier today, to uh… practice flying, see if I could get off the ground yet. I never told anypony I got back though, so I guess when they never saw me come out of Everfree. I guess they got… well, worried.”

Scootaloo gives a big sheepish smile which fails to quell Big Mac’s earth shattering scowl. “You should’ve told someone! Both of you should’ve told someone, you should’ve… Urgh!”

He whips away from us in disdain and walks over by Granny Smith who’s been solemnly quiet ever since she arrived. We watch him take a seat and droop his head before turning our perturbed eyes towards each other.

“So how is she?” Scootaloo asks.

I grip the back of my head, grabbing my mane like it’s the last bit of sanity I have left. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. She’s been in there for almost an hour now. Nurses are going in and out like clockwork. The doctor went in the moment she arrived, but there’s been no sign of him since.”

Dark shadows crawl across Scootaloo’s face. She glances over at Big Mac’ and Granny once again, then whispers, “What happened out there? How did she get hurt?”

My sigh is painful. I look at Scootaloo with sad eyes. I proceed to give a hushed explanation of the events in the forest, occasionally glancing over at the Apple family to make sure they’re still out of hearing distance. Every time I think Scootaloo’s eyes can’t grow another inch she proves me wrong. Her jaw is unhinged like a snake when I’m done filling her in, and anger boils in her pupils.

“Damn Alda,” she grunts under her breath. “Damn spirits, damn everything.”

She takes a few heavy breaths before glaring at me. “Well Sweetie Belle, now are you going to do something, or do think we should just wait and see how this plays out?”

“I was already doing something while I was out there with Apple Bloom.”

Her anger vanishes, her front hoof pulls away in surprise. “You… you were?”

“Not only that, but after seeing Alda tonight, I’m pretty sure I can deal with her without anypony knowing about it.”

Scootaloo’s shocked face gives way to excited joy. “That’s probably the best thing I’ve heard all day. What do you have planned?”

I pause a moment, turn to look at Apple Bloom’s hospital room door, and her family waiting outside. “I don’t think we’ll have time for me to explain everything here. Right now we need to wait for Alda to leave town again before we make our move.”

Realization hits me like a lightening bolt. “Which means Alda may have time to do something else while we wait. Listen Scootaloo, there’s a good chance she might be looking to take one of us and use us as leverage against our sisters, so we need to be on our guards. Do you still have the holy water we got from the cart?”

She smirks, lifts up a wing, and shows me the glass vial tucked underneath it. “Carry it with me wherever I go.”

“Good. When you go to sleep tonight get a glass, pour the holy water into it, and set it by your bed. That should be enough to keep most demons away from you. When you go out in the morning stay alert, watch for anything suspicious, and try to get over to me as soon as you can. We’ll need to be cautious until we get an opportunity to strike.”

Scootaloo nods in understanding and I give her an affirming grin.

“Get out! Right now!”

We flinch in unison. Big Macintosh is glaring murder at a cowering Spike. Poor guy must have just gotten the news.

“I-I-I-I was w-w-worried, I d-didn’t want Apple-”

“You were supposed to be watchin’ her tonight! It was yer’ fault she was out there to begin with!”

“She-she told me she was going home to your house. I thought—”

“You thought wrong! Get out of here, I don’t—”

“Big Macintosh!”

Granny Smith holds eyes of fire underneath her wrinkly face. Never before would I have believed that the kind frail old mare was capable of giving such a cold blooded stare.

“Big Mac, this was not his fault, and even if it was then you an’ I er’ just as guilty as he is!”

“But—”

“No buts!” she screams, sticking her hoof into his chest. “Yer’ little sister is in there right now fightin’ for her life, and the last thing she needs to see when she gets out a there is her friends and family bickerin’ and squabblin’ like a bunch of chicks! We need to be strong, we need to come together, and we need to do whatever it takes ta’ help her through this; you goin’ around pointin’ hooves at everypony isn’t helpin’ matters a lick! Yer’ smarter than this Big Mac, so start actin’ like it!”

Big Mac stands back in stunned silence. He keeps an angered expression on his face for a few sluggish second, before it falls with a burden-laced sigh. “Yer’... yer’ right Granny, yah’ couldn’t be anymore right if yah tried.”

He turns back to Spike, who's still shaking after Big Mac's outburst. “Ah’m… ah’m sorry about that. Yah’ didn’t deserve that. I-I’m just so…”

He shakes his head and pushes trembling hooves through his mane. Spike’s tense posture goes lax, and he gives Big Mac’ sympathetic eyes. “I know Big Mac’, I know. You’re worried sick for her and you’re scared because there’s nothing you can do. Trust me, I know the feeling a little too well at this point.”

Big Mac’ clenches his eyes together, and wrestles with tears. He sits on his haunches and shakes his head. “I… I… I just can’t. If something happens to her… I don’t know what I'll do, how I'll be able to take it.”

"She'll be alright Big Mac'," Spike states. "She's just like her sister, strong, tough, she'll pull through this."

Big Mac's glances at him with a smirk; a small thank you written on his lips.

The door to Apple Bloom’s room opens, a lone doctor comes trudging out. Conversation drops dead, all eyes turn to him. Big Mac’ stands straight as flagpole and stares at the harbinger of news with fearful anxiety. I creep up beside him, my heart beating three times for every step I take. I bite the tip of my hoof, feeling it shake against my teeth as I do.

“Doctor, is mah’ little sister gonna be okay?”

The doctor looks at Big Mac for a moment, and then all of us. His gaze survives everyone present, and then he closes his eyes and gives the verdict.

“She didn’t make it.”

No one speaks, no one moves, no one believes the words they just heard. My brain shuts down and my whole body goes with it. My lungs fail to pull in air, my spine goes stiff as plywood, my legs don’t respond to anything I tell them. I barely know how to turn my head, just to make sure the others heard the same thing I did.

Their faces are a collection of open mouths and gawking eyes. Big Mac’s jaw trembles like a freezing child in the snow, his hooves struggle to sustain balance, and his voice is shaken and flimsy like cardboard. “D-D-D-Don’t… don’t do that to us… doctor. Apple Bloom, she’s mah’ baby sister, she… she means more ta’ me then ya’ could imagine.”

The doctor hangs his head and closes his eyes. “I’m deeply sorry.”

“Don’t joke like this doctor!” He lunges at the physician and holds him up against the wall. “This is m’ah family yer’ talkin’ about here, and it ain’t funny! I swear if you think—”

“It’s not a fucking joke, sir!” The doctor glares at him. Tears stream down his eyes, tears that halt Big Mac’s wrath. “We did everything we could sir, everything. We worked quick as lightning to save her, but we just didn’t have enough time. She was doomed before she even made it into the hospital.”

Big Mac blinks disbelievingly and lets him go without moving his head. The doctor slides down the wall onto his haunches and droops his head into his forehooves. “I’m sorry sir, but young Apple Bloom is dead.”

It’s like a lightning bolt. My head short circuits, I move in a dizzy stupor. This can’t actually happen. This must be a dream. Alda must have cast some hallucinatory spell on me that’s making my nightmares come to life. I can wake up any time and pretend this never even happened. Right? This isn't real. She's not dead.

Big Mac stands agape for a few seconds then turns from the doctor and marches into Apple Bloom’s room. He’s followed shortly by Granny Smith, then Spike, and finally Scootaloo. I stand alone outside, numb to any sense of time. My body has turned to concrete; stiff, hard, and motionless. I hauled Apple Bloom over here as fast as I could, she couldn’t have been out for any longer than a minute before I arrived. How could she have died?

Sinking distress intrudes in my heart, the door to Apple Bloom’s room is veiled in an air of doom. My whole body goes cold, but I have to see this with my own eyes. I need to confirm this isn’t just a bad dream.

My hooves move like they’re mired in tar. I have this horrid feeling like I’m being crushed beneath the entire planet. I’m at the rim of the door, when I first hear it.

Crying. Soft and silent at first, but soon devolves into a loud pained wail.

Big Mac’s sobs are soon joined by that of an elderly mare, and then two young kids. Everyone is crying in there, everyone is heartbroken.

Air enters my lungs like fire, the steam rises in my throat and burns my eyes. Choking back the tears is like swallowing a knife. I can’t do this. I can’t, I just fucking can’t!

I turn from the room and flee the hospital. Cold night air stings like wasps in my face. I run all the way to the keep of Carousel Boutique. I lock the door behind me, and hide myself in the sanctuary of my room.

I lay in a forest of decay, bathing in a pond of blood. The barren pale trees that surround me hold live ponies within their bark. Their twisted, pain-filled expressions can be seen through the wood as if it were latex. Bugs circle the area, giant ones with eerie red eyes and long needle like mouths which they use to pierce the bark of the trees and suck out the marrow. Muffled screams emanate inside the wood as the faces deflate.

I sniff in blood and tears. I float along the pool of gore and stare up at the ash colored sky. My hoof is pressed between my legs, rubbing and pumping in and out of me; I whimper with each push. I try to think of something dirty, but any time I think at all it’s always something too painful to dwell on, so I just mechanically stroke myself with empty passion.

I don’t want to think, I don’t want to be conscious, I’m not sure I want to be alive right now, but living is my curse. Demons never truly die, after all. They can be sealed away, locked up within the deepest recesses of Hell and left to suffer, but they can always break free, always come back. There is no true death for demons.

“Still lying to yourself, Sweetie?”

I cringe, squeeze my eyes shut, and tense up my hooves. “Go… away.”

My demonic side laughs. “Oh, I’m sorry, were you about to cum?”

My breath breaks into shuddering cold bursts, my throat burns with the salt of swallowed tears. I sit up in the shallow part of the blood pond and stare down at my reflection. The evil, demonic face grins at me like a rapist running an orphanage.

“I can give you a minute, if you’d like. Take your time and rub the stress out.”

The reflection turns pure black and rises out of the pool in an inky black mist. It forms the silhouetted shape of a pony in front of me, and then turns to color. It takes the appearance of Apple Bloom.

Acid fills my chest and I breath in knives. My demonic counterpart grins like a snake. “Unless of course you’d rather me join you. I know you always feared you might develop some sick obsession with these toys of yours if you think of them in such a way, but... well, I guess you have no reason to be worried now do you.”

Blood turns to steam in my veins. I clench my teeth and turn away from myself. “Shut up, just shut up! You’re not gonna get to me like that. I won’t allow it.”

“‘Get to you’?” my demonic counterpart repeats. “Oh, my poor, dear Sweetie, I don’t want to ‘get to you’. No, I want to celebrate with you, on such a well played move.”

My breath goes short as I feel hers on my neck. I twist my head around to see my demonic counterpart back in her normal form and staring inches away from me with those blood red eyes. They narrow and inch closer to my own. She blows a party horn in my ear. My heart leaps. She spins a noisemaker and cackles with fiendish delight.

“Congratulations Sweetie, on securing your victory over Alda. Such a cunning display, swiping the answer right underneath her nose! And oh, the way you manipulated that pawn of yours to do it, hehehehahahahahaha!” She raises a hoof to her cheek and pretends to wipe a tear from her eye. “Oh, that was a thing of beauty.”

I choke back tears and glare at her with shrunken pupils. “She wasn’t a pawn you monster! She was my friend!”

I retain composure for another moment, then the dam in my eyes breaks. “A friend that I just let die without saying a word.”

I fall on my side and submerge half my face in blood. Tears come through like fat worms burrowing through my eyelids, and a black hole fills my stomach, draining all feeling from me and leaving nothing but a giant sucking void of pain and emptiness.

I wish I was dead. I wish it was me and not Apple Bloom. If anyone deserved to die it was me, not her.

“Oh, stop being so melodramatic, unless you’re adamant about joining your friend,” my demon self declares. “You still have that knife from Alda’s ritual don’t you? Just take it and slit your own hoof a couple of times, just like that little apple fuck did. You’ll be seeing her again in no time with that attitude.”

She laughs like a crass, drunken mare; a high pitched cackle that rakes my ear drums. I don’t care if she is me, I hate her. I hate her with every ounce of my being, I hate her so much. I press my hooves into my eyes and grit my teeth. I’m ready to snarl, when something in her words occurs to me.

I stand to my hooves, droplets of blood running off my face and turn to her with frozen anger. “What do you mean by that last part? That I’ll be seeing her again?”

She looks at me and snickers. “Well, that’s what I find most delicious about this whole show. This ‘friend’ of yours, this ‘pal’ who was closer to you than your own father; she dies, partly because of your own actions, and, remind me, what was the very last thing she did before she died? Other than stab you and run screaming through the forest that is?”

Her smile grows in direct proportion to my horror.

“No. No. No! You shut up! Shut the fuck up!” I scream. “Don’t even go there! Apple Bloom made a mistake! She didn’t know what she was doing, you son of a bitch!”

She chuckles once more, and places a hoof to her chest like she’s stopping herself from completely breaking out into hysteria again. “If you have to say that to yourself, then can you really be sure? For a demon, you don’t know that much about Hell. You have the stories and the circles and all that jazz, but you don’t know what it takes to get sent there. Hehe, you don’t even know what it takes to get into heaven. You might have just gambled away your best friend’s soul and you wouldn’t even know it.”

Pressure builds in my stomach, molten pools of magma rise in my chest. My counterpart’s cruel snickering only exacerbates the process. “I wonder what circle of Hell she wound up in? What was the punishment for witchcraft again? Having your head twisted backwards and being forced to traverse the inner circles of Hell for all time or something like that? Then again, she did technically end her own life, maybe she’ll wind up in the Forest of Suicide and be chased down by the hellhounds for all eternity."

My teeth clamp shut. Liquid boils in my head and steam fills my skull with no where to go.

“No, wait! Do you know what would truly be the most ironic punishment for her?” she blurts, cackling between words. “She wanted to see her father so badly, so they should throw her into the same circle with him, and force him to torture her for all eternity! They’ll have all the time in the world to spend together! It would be perfect, wouldn’t you agree? Bha ha ha ha ha haa!”

Restraint breaks, my head explodes. I scream with rage and charge at my darker self. I tackle her to the ground and punch her in the face.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut your fucking goddamn mouth, you fucking evil bastard!”

She never stops laughing, even as I stand over her, even as I beat her stupid grinning face in. She just laughs, and laughs, and laughs like she’s overdosing on a bad drug. Blood smears across my face with each punch I throw. I feel her skull crack under my hoof, her face pushes in like a deflated balloon and still she laughs. Her jaw vibrates and makes popping sounds as it moves. I scream as I deliver one last blow, crushing her head completely.

The laughter finally stops.

I growl the remaining anger out of my system. Gore sticks to the bottom of my hoof and I need to yank it free; what I hear is less of an agonized scream and more of shriveled gasp of broken moans. Apple Bloom is beneath my hoof, her body trapped within log-like wood with veiny roots running through her body.

I recoil back with spikes in my chest, my head shakes in disbelief. Her body squirms in the bark like thick paste and I hear a pained raspy voice. “Why… Sweetie… why?”

My body turns to stone, my brain cracks and tears itself apart. One of the giant bugs that were flying around lands on Apple Bloom and pierces her body. She moans in pain as the insect drinks her up through a straw.

I snap and lunge forward, swatting the bug off her. “No, get away! Get away!”

Another bug lands on her and I swat it away. The next one lands on me and sticks its needle into my thigh. Seering pain shoots through my leg like liquid fire. I scream and buck the insect away with my free leg, but almost fall down doing so. It feels like the leg it bit has been replaced with jello. I can’t stand on it.

Apple Bloom screams again, two more insects pierce her through the face. “Help!... Sweetie!... Please, help!”

I roar through tears and crush the insects’ heads against each other. More land and stick me in the ribs and I collapse in writhing agony.

“It hurts… Sweetie… It hurts! Oh, God!”

Tears blur my vision, my head pounds. I scream out again as I reach out towards Apple Bloom. She has an entire swarm of bugs on her, each piercing her body and making her scream. I almost have one of the bugs in my grip, when another one stabs my front hoof. My voice goes out from screaming.

It’s too painful to move, every fiber of my body vibrates pain. I can do nothing but cry and watch my body melt as the swarm sucks out my innards.

“Make it stop… make it stop!... Please!” One of the bugs sticks Apple Bloom’s eyeball. I hear my demonic counterpart laughing. I cry liquid fire that seers my cheeks and boils the ground.

“Apple Bloom!”

The insect penetrates my skull. It’s venomous saliva melts my brain, and then sucks it out it out the back of my head.

I wake up with my face pressed against a moist pillow. My cheeks are still damp, my heart is still buried. Now the fire of anger is added to the bubbling pot of emotions that stews in my stomach. I whimper and sit up in bed, giving my head a few rough smacks.

Come on Sweetie, don’t let that get to you. It just wants to make everyone miserable, yourself included, and it’ll say or do anything to make that happen. Know the tricks of the Devil, and they can not be used against you. Apple Bloom is fine, Sweetie. She’s not in hades, she’s not Hell, she’s not anywhere in the underworld, all you know for sure is that she’s... dead.

“She’s dead.”

The words are heavy in my mind, but grow spikes and barbed wire as they pass through my lips. I sit still for the longest time, vaguely staring at the blank wall in front of me. My head spends all of its focus trying to understand, trying to realize that Apple Bloom is actually gone; that if I walk down to Sweet Apple Acres right now she won’t be there, that it’ll only be me and Scootaloo on the crusades from now on, that last night was the final time I would ever see her.

My lungs and stomach are crushed under an intense weight, pressure pushes against the back of my eyes. I suck in a shaky breath and fight back tears. I’m sick of crying. I’m done with crying.

I take a long breath then sit up on the edge of the bed and get up. I walk out of my room and down the hall to the bathroom, a wound the size of Trottingham in my stomach. I turn on the shower and sit on the tile floor as the hot water rushes over me. The water is steaming, but it fails to thaw my numb brain. I don’t know how long I spend in the shower. I’m not even sure I washed up at all, just that I eventually turned the water off at some point and dried off.

I go to brush my mane, and find myself looking in the mirror. My eyes have red canyons running through them, dark circles hide underneath. My face has turned to stone, my expression chiseled into a weary broken filly who’s lost all sense in life. I press the center of my chest and feel the warm pulse of the demonic rune that hides my true appearance. It still has a few days before it needs to be redone again, but I’m sort of tempted to do it right now. The sight of my own blood sounds almost whimsical.

I laugh and cry at the same time, realizing just how pathetic that desire truly is.

I run a brush through my mane and head downstairs. I decide to go outside so I can… I don’t know, do anything other than think.

I open the front door and nearly trip over what’s lying on the step. Scootaloo lays curled up in a ball right on the welcome mat, silently snoring. I gape at her for what feels like hours, and briefly wonder if I’m still dreaming.

I nudge her, she fusses about in her sleep before her eyes creep open. She rolls on her back and stares up at me with tired red eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I reply.

There’s a brief silence.

“You slept on my front porch?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you remember what I said about Alda hunting us?”

“Yeah.”

“And you still thought sleeping here was a smart idea?”

“I poured some of the holy water on me before I went to sleep.”

“That wears off as soon as the water dries Scootaloo, you got lucky.”

Silence comes again, this time Scootaloo doesn’t keep eye contact, her face remains drained and emotionless. “Sorry I didn’t listen to you. That was stupid.”

Guilt weighs in my chest, my lungs lower into my stomach. “Sorry I ran off like that. I just… I couldn’t…”

I search for the right words, hard to find in the monsoon of my mind. Scootaloo climbs to her hooves and looks at me with sad eyes. “I know, I know, trust me… I know.”

Her eyes trail down, her wings slump from her sides. I feel a rock in my chest, my own guilt welling up for avoiding the subject, but what can I say? What is there to say? Words are such small patches for the wounds of reality.

Scootaloo rubs her sagging eyes and breathes a loud sigh. “Were you going somewhere?”

It’s like a I just woke up from a dream when she speaks. “Y-yeah, I guess I was.”

We walk outside into the cloudy, haze swarmed streets of Ponyville. The town is fairly active mid-morning. Ponies chatter, trade at stalls, and shiver misty breaths into the grey atmosphere. Most of them glance when they see us, fully aware that someone is missing from our party, but none say a word.

Apple Bloom’s spirit is following us. She’s walking right along side us, haunting us with her ghostly presence. I try my best to ignore the anomaly, pretend that nothing is wrong, like I could pretend gravity isn’t real and jump off a building.

This thin veil of denial lasts until we stop at our undetermined destination; by some sick jest of fate, or maybe the guiding hoof of Apple Bloom’s spirit, we end up right outside Sugar Cube Corner.

Words are washed away by a torrent of memories. I can see the moment I met Apple Bloom perfectly, I can hear the exact words we said when forming the group. It was her idea to name us the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

The past is a sickle and we are the chaff. Scootaloo breaths in weak shaky intervals, the walls in her throat strain to hold it in. She keeps her eyes on the bakery and stutters, “M-May-Maybe… maybe we should go in.”

The building is pressing a knife to my throat, and now she wants me to walk forward. “N-No, no, I think it’ll be crowded today,” I whisper. “Besides, don’t you think you’re parents might be worried about you? You’ve been out all night.”

She shakes her head without breaking gaze from Sugar Cube Corner. “I doubt it. My mom is off on some business trip in Los Pegasus, and my dad never really… really…”

Her head wilts, her voice fails. She squeezes her eyes in some futile attempt to smother her tears. Her legs give out from under her. She covers her head with her hooves and she buries her face in the dirt. My chest burns as she cries. It starts as a small whimper at first, a few stray soldiers that broke through the barricade, and then a whole new battalion comes charging in.

Hot tears burn my face, holding back the sob is like taking a punch to the chest. I suck it in and look down at Scootaloo. “Stop, stop, Scootaloo. Don’t do this, stop.”

She continues to sob unheeded. It’s a low torture watching her cry; every tear is a blade that slices my chest, every anguished cry a tremor that jolts my skeleton. Her words come in choked sobs. “I should’ve went straight to you. I should’ve ran and got you the moment Alda offered me that deal. If I had, you would’ve never gone into Everfree and Apple Bloom would still be alive, she’d still be-”

“Shut up!”

I swing a broadsword with my tongue. Scootaloo flinches and looks up at me. My eyes wrestle with tears, my teeth clench like I’m enduring torture. I swallow the rising breakdown in my throat, and then kneel down and wrap my hooves around her.

“This was not your fault,” I cry. “We would’ve went after Alda regardless of whether you were with her or not. I shouldn’t have brought Apple Bloom along in the first place. This was not your fault, Scootaloo. This was not your fault.”

I hold her a little tighter every time I say it. I open my clenched eyes, free the tears to run down my cheeks, and look off towards the gloomy forest. “This was not your fault.”

She’s freezes for a moment, her bones cemented in ice. She gradually thaws out and cries into my shoulder. I continue to hold her and she returns the embrace. We say nothing, just share each others pain; two bleeding souls with only empathy to comfort them.

We suffer these eternal wounds until the sun breaks through the oppressing overcast. Hoofsteps approach us, small pattering hooves that walk without a care in the world. I open my watering eyes and sigh. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon give us fox like grins.

“Oh, isn’t this just the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen Silver Spoon? Two blank flanks huddling together in an open street. Makes you want to gag doesn’t it.”

They cackle like hyenas, I growl like a leopard.

“What are you two doing anyway? Trying to get your cutie marks in snuggling?” Tiara continues.

“Wouldn’t surprise me to hear it,” says Silver Spoon. “Also wouldn’t surprise me to hear you failed just as miserably at that as everything else.”

They laugh again. Scootaloo snarls and stands up. “Just shut up, both of you! We’re in no mood to deal with this today!”

“Oh, and what are you gonna do about it Blank Flank? Swear at me again?” Diamond grins. “You don’t want to bother Miss Cheerilee today, do you? You know she has better things to do than waste her time on a flightless bird, a runty little unicorn, and… say, where is that dirty farm friend of yours anyway? Did she finally ditch you losers for the hopeless cause you are?”

Her smile is a million miles long. Scootaloo stands stiff and motionless, her face frozen in a silent rage. “She’s dead, Diamond Tiara.”

Her head whips back like she’s been slapped in the face. They look at Scootaloo in a stupor, then their expressions turn to annoyance. “Yeah, good one blank flank. I’d say acting might be your special talent, but after that little talent show incident I’d say it should be illegal for any of you get within thirty feet of a stage.”

They cackle again. Scootaloo flares her wings.

“It’s not a joke Tiara!” she screams, stomping her hooves down in front of her. “She was attacked in Everfree Forest last night, and died in the hospital. We were right outside her room when it happened!”

I’ve never seen smugness die so violently before. Their grins turn to open mouths, their haughty eyes to wide shocked haze. Silver Spoon’s lips tremble. “You-You’re… You’re being serious?”

Scootaloo answers her with a steel cutting glare, a look that could light dragon scales on fire.

Silver Spoon loses the blood in her face. “We’re… We’re sorry, we didn’t know… we didn’t...”

She looks away. She holds a hoof to her lips and closes her eyes

“Don’t be sorry, just leave us alone,” Scootaloo growls. “The last thing we want to see at this point is you.”

She turns away from them and sits back down. Silver Spoon hides the tears in her eyes, and begins to walk away; Diamond Tiara does not follow her.

She goes motionless, staring at us with wide eyes and an open mouth. Enough time passes for her presence to become uncomfortable. We look over our shoulders at her, her expression is unchanged by our heated glares.

“What do you mean she was attacked in the Everfree?”

Fear flashes across Scootaloo’s face. I jump in before she says anything contradictory. “She was mauled by a timber wolf, it tore her arm up real bad. I didn’t get her to the hospital in time.”

She pauses a moment. “And what was she doing in Everfree to begin with?”

Scootaloo bares her teeth. “What does it matter to you? She’s dead now, didn’t you torment her enough when she was still breathing?”

Tiara turns to anger. “I just wanted to make sure she didn’t die trying to get her cutie mark or something stupid like that.”

“Oh, so now you’re concerned for her, now that she’s dead?” Scootaloo hisses. “Well, as much as we appreciate it, I’m afraid to say that you’re a little late to apologize; so take it somewhere it’s actually wanted!”

Diamond Tiara grinds her teeth together and then sticks her nose up in the air. “Honestly, I don’t know why I bother wasting my breath on you. You’re just a gang of idiots whose only attainable goal is holding a world record in failure. Apple Bloom’s grave should read ‘here lies the loser who died a blank flank!’”

“You take that back right now!”

“Why should I? She was always doing something stupid to get her cutie mark.” Diamond Tiara turns away from her. Her eyes look distant, like there’s some invisible filly she’s talking too. “She was obsessed with getting one. If she wasn’t jumping off bridges with you three, then she was competing in some dumb skating competition or drinking strange potions from that weirdo zebra’s shack. She was… desperate to find a cutie mark… and she never got it.”

She looks at the ground, tilting her head to hide her eyes. Guilt cuts into my stomach like a blade; Tiara’s comment holds an uncomfortable amount of truth, and digs up sentiments I thought were buried long ago. I glance at her from the corner of my eye, knowing what she’s thinking.

“She didn’t go in to get her cutie mark, just so you know.” I wipe the tears from my eyes and stand up. “Scootaloo went in there earlier, and me and Apple Bloom went in looking for her.”

Tiara looks at us. Her plate sized eyes shrink into needle thin slits. She stands up and snarls at Scootaloo. “So she went in there because of you. She went in there and got herself killed all because you ran off and couldn’t be bothered to tell anyone where you went!”

Scootaloo backs away from her accusation. Her teeth show anger, but her show guilt. “I-I wasn’t… even, there… for longer than a few minutes. I never thought anypony would come looking for me.”

“Well somepony did, didn’t they? And look what happened because of it,” she throws her hooves in the air. “Does it feel good for you, knowing you’re reason you’re best friend is dead?”

“I should also mention,” I state, interrupting Tiara’s tirade, “that Scootaloo went in there to practice her flying, away from anyone who might see her.”

Tiara makes a strange cracking sound in her throat, and backs away from my burning glare. Her pupils shift and search around before she regains composure and starts pointing hooves again. “Well… it’s still her fault. Who cares if someone sees a flightless bird in motion? She should know better than to go into Everfree.”

“That’s really how you’re gonna handle this? Fall back on name calling and blaming others? Do you ever change?”

“I… I… I-I-I-I-I…” Moisture forms in the crevices of her eyes, she clenches them shut to bar the tears. Her head whips back to me with the fury of a boar. “I don’t need to listen to you! You’re no one, blank flanks who have no purpose to live here or even exist at all! You could disappear tomorrow and the world wouldn’t be any different! No one cares about you, no one cares about your stupid dead friend, no one cares about a whiny runt pegasus who can’t fly or a dumb whimp unicorn who’s too naive to realize her parents dumped her on her sister because they didn’t want her!”

She scoffs and walks away from us, flicking her tail as she turns. I watch her leave with slanted eyes. “Maybe I should’ve just spread those pictures of your vag around town.”

Tiara freezes. She stands like a rabbit viewing the approaching jaws of a wolf. Her head creeks around until her terrified eyes meet mine. “W-Wha-What does that mean?”

“You know exactly what it means.” I lurk forward, giving her a venomous glare. “There was a bit of confusion in our group, after that whole ‘Gabby Gums’ incident. We thought for sure you were gonna run those pictures of us in the paper, but time marched on and it never happened. We never figured out why you didn’t run them, or at least, my friends never knew.”

There’s enough shock on her face to power all of Manehatten for a year. She steps back as I approach, shaking her head in disbelief. “No… No, no, no, you’re full of manure. You didn’t do that, you couldn’t have done that.”

“Oh, but I did.” Malice oozes from my voice. “I snapped the photos right in your bedroom as you slept, and then I replaced them with the ones you had on us. I even destroyed the camera afterwards so there’d be no evidence on the off chance you did do something stupid.”

“You… you couldn’t. That’s not you, you don’t do things like that!”

I stop my march. I look at her for a moment, then my flat lips curve into an evil grin. I chuckle fiendishly. “Do I? I remember back when we first met I said that ‘Blank Flanks’ are also ‘Blank Slates’; that they’re full of potential and could become great scientists, or amazing artists, or famous writers, or even the mayor Ponyville. You don’t know what they’re capable of, what they’ll become. They could be the greatest ponies ever known in all Equestria, or maybe… they could be the devil himself.”

I hold my grin at her throat like a dagger. She looks at me with broken eyes, and a broken mind. Tears stream down her face and she looks at the ground. “Get away from me.”

I chuckle once more. “Oh, what’s wrong? Is the little bully having a hard time swallowing her own medicine?”

“I said, get, away from me, you fucking monster.”

“And look who’s using the foul language now. Don’t you think your mother would be disappointed? Oh that’s right, she’s not here.” I taunt, breathing inches away from her face. “And to think you had the gall to say my parents don’t care, at least I have a mother who has the common courtesy to drop in and say hello once in awhile. Unlike your’s, who ran off to Manehatten the moment she found a stallion as rich as your father without of the con of being so ugly he could-"

“Go to hell, Sweetie Belle!”

She punches me in the face.

It doesn’t hurt at all, but I make it look like it does. I spin my head back and stumble to the ground, holding my cheek to cover a none existent scar. Tiara snarls like animal and glares hatred at me. It takes a her a few seconds to fully comprehend what she just did, but it’s already been done. Horror dawns on her as town ponies look at us with shocked, angered expressions. Tiara looks down at me. I shoot her a wicked grin, turn away from her, and cry.

I ball into the ground, watering the dry soil with my fake tears. It’s seconds before I hear more hooves surrounding us, a few more before the murmuring starts, and then the sweet sound of Filthy Rich’s voice.

“Diamond Tiara!” he shouts.

“W-w-wait! Dad, you don’t understand! You don’t know what she said to me, what she was doing. You don’t—no! Get your hooves off me! Let me go!”

I smirk as I hear him drag Tiara off. I wonder what’ll happen when they get back home? Not that I’m worried of Tiara spilling anything. She’s smart enough to know who has the reigns in this situation.

I feel the caress of a hoof against my back, and I revert back to crying. I push myself up and sit on my haunches. Mrs. Cake holds my chin as she examines my face. “Oh dear, are you okay?”

I sniff in. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

She turns my face to both sides, and gives me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t look that serious. Not even a mark to show for it.”

“I know, I know, I’ll be fine, it’s just…” I quiver my lip. “I don’t understand why she’s so mean to us all the time. She can’t even be a little caring when Apple Bloom… when Apple Bloom…”

I cry into her chest, and she responds like a mother. “Oh Sweetie, there, there.”

She holds me close and pats a hoof on my back. I manage to shed real tears and use them to my advantage. I burry my face in Mrs. Cake’s chest and let her feel the moisture in my eyes. She rubs my back, I smile at the effectiveness of my act.

I shift my head against her, and notice Scootaloo standing off to the side. She looks at me with a mix of anger and disgust. She doesn’t say anything, just turns around and walks off.

I’m alone now with a crowd of strangers. I wait until most of them have dispersed and Cup Cake has said her comforts, then I follow Scootaloo. I use my clairvoyance and see her sitting in the clubhouse, then I trot my way there.

Blades of pain cut up my stomach when I enter Sweet Apple Acres. I’m fighting back tears before I even reach the clubhouse, and when I finally arrive I almost croak. Why did she have to come here? How can she even bare it?

I think back to the day when Applejack gave us this clubhouse, and we spent all day sprucing it up. Me and Scootaloo found all this cool stuff for the inside, and made all the plans for what we’d do in it, but it was Apple Bloom that rebuilt the house. She fixed every step, sanded off every splinter, replaced the entire roof. It was her work we had been using this whole time.

Every step I climb adds weight to my hooves. I feel like some large creature is trying crush me under its hoof. I stand in front of the door; the door Apple Bloom painted, varnished, and rehinged herself. I avoid turning the handle for as long as I can, then take a pained breath and push forward into hedge of thorns.

The clubhouse is dark inside, just a faint glow of sun leaking in from the window. Scootaloo stands at the right side of the room, staring at the wall with her hoof pressed against it. Three red capes hang in front of her, waiting patiently for their owners to come, one of which will be waiting forever.

Her head tilts down and tears drop to the floor. I feel my own well of sorrow overflowing again. Water leaks through the cracks in my eyes, I close them tight to shield my face. I draw a quivering breath and step towards Scootaloo. I let her cry for a few moments, not knowing what to say. I reach a hoof out for her shoulder.

“I can see why Alda keeps asking you to join her.”

My hoof halts, my eyes go wide and my lips go flat.

“You two would be a match made in Hell. You’re both already masters of lying, blackmail, and just being a straight up jerk. What you two could do by joining forces, that is a scary thought. I could have nightmares about that.”

I stare at her quietly a moment, my eyes get more narrow by the second. I speak with a low grating voice. “You were perfectly content when I tortured and killed demons coming into this town, but sticking it to Diamond Tiara is somehow crossing a line?”

“Diamond Tiara wasn’t planning to kill or hurt anyone. She shot a couple pictures of us covered in mud and dressed in frilly costumes, and in return you snuck into her house and shot pictures of her dirty bits. Did you really consider that even?”

“I told you exactly what I was planning back at the schoolhouse, and you didn’t say a word! She has been lying about us and making fun of us for years now, ever since the day we met her. You’d think she’d know when to give it a break already, but no, even when Apple Bloom is dead—”

“No, don’t even go there. Don’t even try to justify this using Apple Bloom!” She jumps to her feet in the heat of her tirade. “You’re right, I didn’t care about Tiara back at the schoolhouse, and even now I can’t find too much sympathy for her, but the fact that you used Apple Bloom’s death to keep yourself out of trouble… that is low, Sweetie Belle, even by your standards!”

I go silent, and lose the anger on my face. I turn away from her accusing eyes and look out the window. “I… I just… it felt like the right thing to say at the time. I was… looking for something to say to Mrs. Cake and that was the first thing that came to mind.”

Scootaloo glares at me, her body stiff and motionless. “Do you even care that she’s dead?”

I choke on my own heartbeat. “Of course I care! She was our best friend, god damnit!”

“Then how could you use her like that?! Throw her name in with those lies! How can you do that?”

I go silent, my tongue is limp.

“How? How can you do it. Sweetie?”

I say nothing.

“How?!”

“How!”

“Because I’m a fucking monster, Scootaloo!” I glare at her with burning anger and boiling tears. “Look at me, look at my life. Everything I am is either a vicious display of murder or a fat fucking lie. I don’t even need to think of hurting someone to do it, it’s second nature to me. I can sing lies as easily as I do songs. Blood is a second skin that feels more comfortable than my own. Even when I try to behave, it’s so no one will see what I truly am.”

I swallow a sob, and smother my tears with my hooves. “It’s pointless for me to even try. I am a monster. I was born one and I’ll die one. There’s no use trying to deny it.”

My head lowers down, my hooves come to my mane. I whimper and embrace the cold wood floor. Sound is dead, my skin is numb, firey liquid runs down my eyes. My gut is filled with despair, a sucking void of hopelessness that swallows me alive.

I want nothing more than to fade into nothing, but Scootaloo won’t give me the pleasure. Her shadow stands over me like a looming gallows platform. "Sweetie Belle.”

I sniff in. “What?”

She lifts up my chin so that I face her. She stares at me with teary eyes, then slaps me in the face.

“Don’t even think like that!”

I’m shocked; not hurt, just shocked. My face doesn’t even sting, yet I touch the place she struck me anyway. I look at her, and find her glaring at me with watery wounded eyes.

“If you don’t want to be called a hero, fine, but you are not a monster, Sweetie Belle! Alda is a monster, her demons are monsters, Azmodeus is a fucking monster! They’re the ones deceiving and killing hundreds of innocent ponies to for themselves, and you’re risking everything to stand against them!”

My wide eyes shrink to teary slits. “Scootaloo, I told you before the only pony I’m trying to save by fighting is mys—”

“No, you’re fucking not!” she shouts in my face. “If that’s true then you’d have no reason to stay here, no reason to fight Alda at all. You could just pack up your things, walk right out of town, and found another small village to live in; one that didn’t have homicidal hunters or escaped demon lords charging through it. If all you care about is yourself, then why are you still here?”

I go silent. My hoof raises and comes back down several times, but I can’t bring myself to tell her.

“You’re not being selfish, Sweetie, you’re protecting the town,” Scootaloo continues. “The only reason Ponyville hasn’t been overrun by an army of demons is because of you, because you’re fighting them. The fact that you’re even here at all says you’re not a monster.”

I stare at her silently. “And you see nothing wrong with how I’m fighting them?”

“They’re planning on doing the exact same thing to innocent ponies. Why does ‘how you fight them’ matter?”

I’m silent again. Words slice up my throat like razor blades. “Apple Bloom thought it mattered. She could barely stomach seeing what I did.”

Scootaloo’s expression wilts, her eyes go dark.

“You know what the last thing she said to me was, before she died? She said that she couldn’t get use to me being a demon, that she couldn’t stand seeing what I do, and that we couldn’t be friends anymore. She passed out right after she said that. That was the last thing I ever heard her say.”

My breath shakes, my blood freezes. “My best friend used her last breath to tell me to fuck off. How could she have seen me as anything less than a monster?”

Nothing is said for the longest time. Scootaloo’s stares at me like she just seen the gates of Hades open up. Her jaw trembles, her wings hang limp from her sides. “I… I… I…”

She shakes her head and turns away from me. She runs a hoof down her face and looks at the floor shaking her head. Her eyes drift up towards our capes, and then shift to the side window. She stares out for a some time before breaking the smothering silence.

“I think you should go see her.”

I squint my eyes at her. “What do you mean?”

“Apple Bloom.” She stands away from the window, allowing me a view of the farm house in the distance. “They took her back to the farm after she… well… she’s at the farmhouse basically, in her room. You can still see her, if you want.”

The air in the room compresses around me, icy rain fills my bones. “Sc-Scootaloo I can’t, there’s no way I’d be able to. I… I couldn’t even contain myself in the hospital, I don’t know how I could bring myself to see her now.”

Scootaloo’s eyelids squeeze together. “I know Sweetie Belle, but I still think you should.”

She walks towards me, her voice quivers. “I don’t know how you’re going to deal with what she said, I can’t even imagine. But... maybe you can start by saying goodbye.”

My heart stabs my chest with every beat. Cold sweat runs down my head. My hind legs give out and slump to the ground. Scootaloo sighs and turns to our three red capes hanging on the wall. She takes her own which embraces her warmly as she wraps it around her neck, and then takes down the other two as well.

She drapes me with my own cape and then sets the last one down in front of me. “Even if she was afraid of you as a demon, that doesn’t make you a monster.”

Her joyless, tear-streaked face is somehow convincing. I place a hoof on the red velvet cape. The smiling gold filly emblem seems so naive, so blissfully unaware of its owner’s fate, like a old dog awaiting the return of its master.

Tears claw at the back of my eyes like caged lions. I look up at Scootaloo and then nod my head.

I tie the knot on my cape and carry Apple Bloom’s over my shoulder. Scootaloo gives me a hoof to pull me up and then we leave the clubhouse.

The road to Sweet Apple Acres is littered with brown and gold leaves that are carried by the wind. The orchard is in a somber mood today. Sound is absent save for the crunching of leaves under our hooves. We don’t say a word as we walk, we barely even look at each other. We only stop once we reach our destination.

The farm has become a ghost town. The trees, which Big Mac would normally be hard at work bucking, stand lonely and unattended. Baskets of apples sit forgotten and neglected with no one to carry them into the barn. It’s unnatural to see this place so dull, so quiet.

So lifeless.

Lead fills my hooves when we walk through, spears press against my chest as we draw closer to the house. It wouldn’t surprise me to see red hellish energy leaking out the cracks of the front door as if the house had become a riverway to the underworld. I can almost sense the Ferryman approaching from the other side. In fact, I actually do sense something approaching.

I can hear the heavy breathing of a stallion with labored lungs, and I can feel the strong vibrations of hooves with lighter ones following behind. They’re approaching the door. My heart jolts and my head swerves looking for a place to hide. Scootaloo yelps as I pull her behind the side of the house and put a hoof to her mouth.

Big Mac trudges out of the house, his eyes closed to capture moisture, his bangs scraping the ground as he walks. Granny Smith comes out after him, but stops at the front porch. She stares at Big Mac with heavy eyes, which she closes and turns to the ground. “We ain’t gonna say a word of this to Applejack.”

Big Mac’s halts his pace, and sighs into the dirt. “I understand Granny.”

Her eyes quiver when she looks back at him. “Big Mac—”

“You don’t need to explain nothin’,” he states. “Applejack has her own problems to deal with tryin’ save Equestria. This can wait until she comes home safe.”

They stand like stone maidens for a moment. Waterfalls trail down Big Mac’s face, his frown is cut like a deep scar. He croaks, gritting his teeth like he’s in physical pain. Granny Smith approaches him, her shadow dries his tears.

“I’m sorry Granny, it’s just… ever since ma’ and pa’ died, I always had this fear that I’d lose someone else. I can’t tell you how scared I was when Applejack started using those elements. I kept having this nightmare that she’d go off with her friends one day and never come back. I was always worried she might be hurt one day, and now…”

He can’t hold it in any longer. His eyes shut, he buries his head in his hooves and cries. Granny Smith embraces him. She doesn’t say a word, just holds him close as he bleats into the ground.

Me and Scootaloo watch the scene with knives in our hearts. Big Mac’s tears might as well be our own blood. Scootaloo tears her gaze away from the sight and asks, “Why are we hiding?”

I’m unsure of the reason myself. Emotion and logic are poor bedfellows. “Because… because this is my last chance to see her… and I don’t want to waste it having to keep up my act in front of her family. I can’t be truthful if they’re watching me.”

She looks me a moment, then nods her head. “I understand.”

She peeks around the corner and looks at the mourning family. “Come on, we’ll climb in through the window.”

I nod and follow her in. We come in through the kitchen and tip-toe our way upstairs. The floorboards moan under our hooves, beyond that the hallway is silent. We stop in front of Apple Bloom’s door, an icy atmosphere wafts through the door. We pass each other nervous stares. I inhale a deep breath, then slowly lift up my hoof for the handle. I turn the knob, and we walk in.

Thousands of foot long daggers stab my body as I enter. One sight wounds me more than I’ve ever been in my ten years on this plane: Apple Bloom rests motionless in her bed. the covers are pulled up to her chest, her arms poke out on top and lay against her sides. The wound on her hoof has been cleaned and wrapped up; a life saving effort made too late. She looks peaceful, almost like she’s sleeping, but breath does not move in her chest, the aura of life does not surround her. Death has left nothing but a tranquil shell.

The dam in my chest cracks but holds against the flood of sorrow. I want to cry, but I want to say what I have to first. I look back at Scootaloo, who’s visibly shaken as well. She looks at me with bleeding eyes and nods at me to continue.

I swallow steel and breath deep. There’s a ten pound weight on my hoof that I carry with each step. The closer I get to Apple Bloom the more my heart bleeds. Every impulse is telling me to stop, to turn away from this bed of razors, run, and never looking back. Yet, I continue to move forward, drawn by some unseen hook, until I’m standing right in front of her.

My blood chills to an icy substance, my breath turns to crystal. Apple Bloom’s face is as white as marble. She looks more like a clay sculpture of herself, fast asleep in a dream. Tears leak from my eyes; seeing her this close squeezes them out of me. It was only a few cuts that did this, a few gashes in her flesh that left deeper scars than she could’ve imagined; and now they’re my scars.

My throat bursts and I sob into her sheet.

I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t. How can I even begin to say goodbye when she can’t even hear that I’m sorry? She didn’t even want to see me again after last night. My presence here can’t be anything less than a disturbance. Her spirit will haunt me for the rest of my life for being here.

I douse the mattress with my tears, further angering the deceased that lays upon it. Scootaloo’s shaking hoof grasps my shoulder. Rivers flow down her cheeks, attempting to reach across and link with my own. She speaks in a raspy voice. “She was your friend, Sweetie Belle. It doesn’t matter what she said, she was still your friend.”

Yeah, she was, until she denied it with her last breath. Maybe Apple Bloom was right, maybe we couldn’t have been friends after that night. Maybe she couldn’t have accepted me as a demon. Maybe we would’ve gone our separate ways.

My head rises off the bedsheets. There’s a black hole in my stomach, a sucking void of anguish that has consumed my entire body, and yet I laugh. I have to laugh when I realize it. This entire time I've been trying to keep them away from anything demonic, and with her final moments she pushed herself as far away from it as she could. She did exactly what I wanted.

“Sw-Sweetie Belle?”.

“I am beyond redemption.”

Scootaloo winces back, cold silence fills the room. I stand to my hooves, and look down at Apple Bloom. “I never told you that did I, at least not flat out, but maybe you already sort of knew. There is no chance for me to ever see Paradise. Demons are condemned to Hell. That’s a simple fact, and there’s nothing I can do to change it.”

Tremors shake in my lungs, coaxing tears like fruit from a tree. “I promised that I’d give you nothing but the truth, and while I have upheld that promise there’s still some things I haven’t told you. It’s true, that I only hunt ponies who harm others. It’s true that I’ve never harmed anyone who was innocent, but it’s also true that I’m not doing it out of any sense of justice. No, I’m doing it because… because the thought of anypony throwing away their chance to go to Heaven when I don’t have one makes me sick!”

I yell and slam my hooves into the end of the mattress. “I hate ponies who are so careless with their fate, I hate them so much! I can pity them for their end, but I can never forgive them for getting there.”

I inject tears into the bed. I turn my head to speak. “I have been haunted by that fate my entire life. I’ve lashed out at those who choose such an end, I’ve killed those who would lead anyone to that end… and I’ve spent my entire life in denial of the fact that that is my end.”

I force back more sobs, and stare at Apple Bloom with my chin against the bed. “You were more innocent, more caring, more pure than I’ll ever be. When I was with you, I could forget everything about myself, and for a moment it was like Paradise was actually within my grasp.”

I form a wall with my teeth to hold it back. “Now you’re gone, and that fantasy has died with you. I’ll never get the chance to see you again, not like your friends or family. They’ll be with you, or at least have a chance to be with you; but for me, I don’t have that. The only thing I have in store is… is…”

I grip the hem of the sheets and sob loudly. “I’m scared Apple Bloom. I can’t describe how scared I am! There’s no hope for me. I am damned no matter what I do. I’ve always tried to distance myself from that fact. I’ve practically tried to forget I’m a demon, but now that you’re gone… now that you’re gone…”

The sheets rip in my grip. I can’t hold it in any longer. I grab the lifeless hoof in front of me and explode like a grenade. “Please don’t leave me, Apple Bloom! Please! I don’t care if you can’t accept me as a demon, I don’t care if you never trust me again! I just want you here, I just want you back again, please! I want you here.”

I burry my face next to her body, and continue to implore the corpse to rise. This void of despair eats me alive, it breaks me down until I’m nothing but a jibbering sobbing mess.

Scootaloo lays a maternal hoof on my shoulder. I look at her and see tears shooting down her cheeks like stars, illuminating the pain and sadness beneath. I gaze for three seconds, then I break. I release all of my anguish and despair in one loud, guttural scream.

Scootaloo embraces me and we collapse on the floor. My face presses against hers and we bear each other’s sorrow. “I’ll be there for you, Sweetie.”

She cries the words, and repeats them again and again in my ear. “No matter what, I’ll be there for you. I’ll be there for you. I’ll be there for you.”

Author's Notes:

:D