Rain poured down in sheets from the sky. It was midday in Ponyville, though there was little to show it. The sun never shone there anymore. The weather patrols had long ago given up; the sky either poured down rain or was smothered in layers of relentless slate grey clouds. Smoke from the chimneys ascended wearily into the sky, sodden with the heavy moisture in the air, leaving the world tinged with soot that streaked down the walls in the rain and trickled into the muddy streets. The only break in the interminable downpour was a muted roll of thunder, far off in the distance.

Another funeral was underway. How many was it now? The procession of mourners, too bereaved to even expend the effort of dressing in black for the occasion, escorted the coffin down the street, on the long, slow march out to the graveyard on the edge of town. Who was it? Nopony knew. There were no names anymore. Nopony lit so much as a candle in a window in memory. Nopony could be seen looking out of their homes; Death and grief drew no interest anymore. Only darkened windows, bleak and black as the hollow eyes of a skull, watched as the plodding mourners walked by in the rain.

Pinkie retreated from the one unboarded window, letting the curtain fall back in place. She didn't want to be seen.  She didn't want anyone to know how the Bearer of the Element of Laughter had given up hope. She couldn't stand it anymore.... all the happiness and cheer inside her was gone, worn out, used up. She had gone into hiding in Sugarcube Corner weeks ago, and never come out.

Pinkie was grateful at least that there was nopony to bother her while she tried to hide her misery away. Not that there would be; the bakery downstairs had been closed for weeks, the windows boarded up. Cup Cake just hadn't had the strength of will to open up again, not after what had happened to Carrot Cake and the twins... she spent all her time in her own room now, alone. Sometimes Pinkie could hear her weeping.

        Pinkie couldn't sleep. It was probably time to check everything again.

Pinkie had caught her in the bathroom once, staring at a bottle of pills. After Pinkie got Mrs. Cake to go back to bed, she'd sneaked back in later and threw all the pill bottles in the medicine cabinet away. That had been too scary.

Then she'd caught Mrs. Cake fiddling with a butcher knife. Pinkie had to throw all the sharp knives in the kitchen away, too.

The day after that it had been all the bottled cleaners. She hadn't caught Mrs. Cake trying to pour herself a bleach cocktail, but she wasn't taking any chances.

Pinkie got up and did a round of the house. She plodded wearily through the unlit rooms, searching in the dim light filtering through the cracks in the boarded up windows. She pulled down a noose Mrs. Cake had tied to the chandelier in the living room, and unplugged the toaster she'd balanced on the edge of her bathtub. In the cobweb-filled nursery she'd found a loaded gun. Pinkie shuddered and unloaded it, throwing the bullets in the trash and the gun out the window.

        It was a good thing ponies didn't have trigger fingers, she decided.

        Down in the dusty kitchens she found the baker lying lifelessly on the floor, her head in the oven. "C'mon, Mrs. Cake," Pinkie said to her. "Please, I know your heart is broken and your soul is bleeding and we're all being slowly sucked down into a morass of existential despair, but you have to find the will to go on..."

"Leave me be," sobbed the baker. "I've lost everything, just let me end it all like this."

Pinkie stood there, stroking her straight pink mane, fiddling with her spiked black collar, uncertain what to say. "They disconnected the gas a week ago," she finally ventured. "And I don't think it matters anyway. Not with that oven."

There was a long pause. "....Stupid electric stove," Mrs. Cake said.

Pinkie finally pulled the wearily protesting Cup Cake out of the oven, took away the pack of razor blades she'd hidden in her apron and put her back to bed. Once the baker had finally cried herself to sleep again, Pinkie realized there was nothing else for her to do. She stood for a while in the upstairs hallway at the window as the shadows pooled around her and listened while some beggar limped by in the street below, crying "penny for the blind, guv'nor? Penny for the blind? Have pity, guv; blind, lame, contracted leprosy, eczema..."

She dragged herself back to her own room, put on her Linkin Park record and flung herself across her bed. She gazed in sorrow at the urn full of Gummy's ashes sitting on her dresser, and at her own reflection in the mirror behind it. Was her black eye liner running? She dabbed at it with a hoof. The deep and profound lyrics of the record echoed in the profound bleakness of her soul. It was true; they'd tried so hard, and come so far, and in the end it didn't really matter--

There was a strange sort of ripple in the air...

The reflection in the mirror behind the dresser suddenly changed. The dark greyish-pink pony in the mirror suddenly lightened several shades; her goth garb disappeared and her flat, limp mane suddenly poufed into a cloud of curls. She blinked, grinned-- and fell right to sleep, snoring loudly right through the mirror.

Meanwhile the Pinkie lying across the bed sat bolt upright. She looked around, blinking in surprise. "What the--?"

She looked at the room, noting the decor: posters for Radiohead and the Cure, in between pictures of graveyards and skeletons and pale, anemic looking flutterponies with black wings; black drapes over the cracked windows; victrola playing a linkin park album; funeral urn full of dead alligator.... She looked down at herself, took in the  studded faux-leather collar around her own neck, the matching cuffs around her ankles; dabbed at the black lipstick on her lip and black mascara and eyeliner around her eyes. Rain pounded monotonously on the roof and streaked down the dirty windows.

"Ohhh boy," Pinkamena said. "This one's gonna be a toughie." She faceplanted in the mattress.