“This is the best day in my life!” I proclaim to my reflection, who waves back at me. “Just look at all the neat stuff I got!” My eyes sparkle and glitter at the mountainous pile of gift-wrapped boxes.

“Yeah, you sure got a good haul today, me,” my reflection says, and shrugs. “But it's all just useless junk. You never get what I really want.” With that, she turns tail and leaves the frame. The mirror turns blank. Huh? What gives? Why can't she ever be happy for me? What a loser.

“Open 'em!” Apple Bloom claps her hooves together and grins madly.

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle bursts out of the pile. “You'll love 'em!”

“Where did you two come from?” I scratch my mane and put my toothbrush down. Now isn't the time to brush my teeth. I often do that when I wake up, as that makes my mouth feel clean and it tastes nice. This stuff is completely tasteless, though, like plain, ordinary paste. I spit it out and rise my mouth. Odd, the water's completely formless. I can't feel it at all. Am I forgetting something?

“Scootaloo, are you alright?”

Huh? “Uh, yeah, I'm fine.” Why wouldn't I be? I have my friends with me, and a bunch of wonderful birthday presents.

Princess Luna pokes her head through the window. Her eyes widen and she frowns. “Strange. There's something wrong with your dream, but everything looks okay. Are you sure you're feeling well?”

“I guess...?” Now that she mentions it, I do feel hollow somehow. But everything looks alright. I'm sure I'll be fine. “Would you like to stay for cake? I don't have any yet, but when I do, I'm sure it will be dashing!”

Luna sighs. “Sorry, Scootaloo, but I have my duties to attend to. There's a slumber party in Canterlot that turned sour, and I need to remind some fillies why it's such a bad idea to devour an entire pizza right before going to bed.” With that, she excuses herself and vanishes through a floating door. Whatever, I can still have a cool party without her.

Grinning, I run towards my huge pile of gifts, and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom stomp on the floor excitedly. This is awesome! I reach out to grab a big, pink-wrapped box with a thick, red ribbon, but it pops like a soap bubble.

“No!”

One after the other, each and every one of the birthday presents pops. The shadows darken, and spiders crawl up the bare, cracked, empty, peeling walls. “No no no!”

“Sorry, Scootaloo, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.” Sweetie Belle shrugs. “If it makes you feel better, you can still have my gift.” She offers me a small, white box.

I take it, nodding and smiling. Of course my friends wouldn't let me down. “Thanks, Sweetie. This is—um...” Inside the box is the bottom of the box. “Empty!”

“Do you like it?” Sweetie Belle grins. “I packed up our confidence in you.”

“Yeah.” Apple Bloom shrugs. “We kinda don't have any.”

“No confidence?” They each look away and refuse to meet my gaze. My heart aches from their abandonment. “But why?”

“Uh, you might wanna open my gift.” Apple Bloom gives me a large box wrapped only in old, yellow newspapers.

I'm not keen on opening it, but I have to know, what are they talking about? The paper crumbles at my touch, and with trepidation I pull off the top. Inside is just blackness. It's empty too.

“That one contains your ability to fly,” Apple Bloom says, and Sweetie nods her head.

Grr. How dare they mock me like that! Just because my wings haven't grown in yet doesn't mean that I'll be grounded forever. In fact, I was getting better at flying the last time I tried it. “Oh, ha ha. Quit fooling around, you two. Of course I can fly; I'm a pegasus! Just watch.”

I crouch down to buzz my wings, but I can't feel them. They refuse to budge. Alarmed, I twist around, and there on my sides are a pair of padlocks. “Gah! What happened to my wings!?”

“Dunno.” Sweetie Belle shrugs and floats off the ground in a cloud of magic. “Check it out: I made a new spell. I call it my 'Fly Better Than Scootaloo' spell.”

“No! Stop! You can't do that! I need to fly! Me! Not you!” She floats above, just out of reach, and my padlocks weigh me down like lead. Jumping causes them to slap at my sides, and each impact hurts worse than the one before. No no no! I can't be stuck on the ground! “Apple Bloom, you have to help me! Help me get her down and cast that spell on me. I just want to fly! I don't care how anymore.”

A light flashes on Apple Bloom's flanks and she pushes my away. Appearing there are wings. “Sorry, Scootaloo, but it looks like I got my special talent.”

“What is it?” I ask, dreading the answer.

Her cutie-mark wings unfurl, and she flaps them, taking to the air and joining Sweetie Belle in buzzing around my head. “It's flyin' better than you of course,” she says, as if it's the most obvious thing ever. “Now this is what Ah'm talkin' about. Aw, yeah! I could get used to this!”

They're so far above, spinning around, yet so close. I can reach up, but I'll never reach them. My useless padlocks won't let me fly. It's all I can do not to cry. “No! Stop! Don't leave me here! Don't fly away! This can't be happening!”

“Hey, Apple Bloom, you know what I hear? A bunch of squawking!”

“What?”

“Eeyep! B-gawk! B-gawk! B-gawk!” Both of them hover above me, pausing to flap their forelegs in a mock gesture. The building's gone, and I'm sitting in a dirt enclosure next to Fluttershy's chicken coop.

“Stop that! I'm not a chicken!”

“Says the chicken!” Sweetie Belle snickers and leans back on her magic field. “Who can't fly.”

“Yeah!” Apple Bloom does a flip and dives down to smack my head before swooping back up out of reach. It didn't hurt, but my injured pride can't take much more punishment. “Looks like we brought you home. If you don't like us, go complain to mommy chicken.”

Ooh, she did not just say that! I can take hits to myself, but that's going too far. “Hey! You do not get to insult my mother! I have the coolest mom in all of Equestria!”

“If your mom's so cool, then why isn't she here?” Sweetie Bell's green eyes glow as she glars down from above. “It's because she's a chicken.”

“No she is not! I'll show you! You'll be sorry that you've messed with me!” Kicking up a cloud, I turn to run, but it's pointless. There, on the horizon, is a giant chicken where Canterlot's mountain used to be. My ears wilt and my mouth drops. She's wearing a golden tiara and the full regalia of the sun. “No! It can't be!”

“SQUAWK!” The earth shakes with her fury. She's mad, angry at me.

I can't speak. This is beyond words. My heart wants to apologize, but my brain shuts down. I-I can't even move.

“BA-GAWK!” That wasn't good enough for her. I'm not good enough for her. She stomps the ground in fury, and it cracks, splitting open a gaping maw beneath me.

I fall into the pure blackness, padlocks weighing me down. All I can do is scream.

“Aaaaaa—”

“—aah!” Huffing for breath, I bolt upright in bed. It was a dream! Of—of course it was a dream. Luna even said so. But why was it so vivid? Why did it seem so real? Why... did it hurt so much?

The morning sun casts a ray of light on the wall, brightening up my poster of Rainbow Dash doing a sonic rainboom. Wonderbolts dart about on their posters as well. There's even one with Daring Do challenging the Dragon of Dread. All of them are in the sky. All of them are flying.

My scooter's lying in its corner, cracked and peeling. It's the closest thing I have to the freedom of flight, but it's wearing out on me; even my helmet's seen better days.

I... I've surrounded myself with poignant reminders of just how much flight means to me. I pull the covers over my head so birds can't peek in and watch me cry. This is not how I wanted to start my day. Next Chapter: Decadal Disaster Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 18 Minutes