"Leave me alone."

"I'm inside of you, Scootaloo. You can't get rid of me that easily, can you?"

"Just...go. Please?"

"I own you, bitch. You're mine, from now to forever. Stop being so pathetic, I'm not going anywhere."

"I hate you."

"I know, I can feel it. It feels amazing, doesn't it? That slowly building wealth of power that stems from a sense of wrath. It's so easy to become drunk with rage, and once you start, you never stop!"

"I HATE YOU!! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!"

"You're wasting your time. You may hate me, but it's because I am what you feel towards them. That's why you did it, remember?"

Madness is a strange thing, and the truly insane are often incapable of full realization of what they are. As time passes onward, they remain in a stagnant state of being, stuck like pebbles on a riverbed. While everyone else moves onward with their lives, they simply stay where they've always been, incapable of growth or alteration.

Scootaloo stared into the mirror. She and her demonic alter-ego had been arguing for what felt like hours now. She didn't fully understand why the sadistic pegasus was in her mirror, or looked so much like her in the first place, but it didn't matter. Scoots wasn't going down without a fight.

"Go away. I don't want you, I don't need you."

"Come now, you know why I'm here! You've always known, and you've hidden from me regardless of what you really know. It's a secret that you've been hiding from yourself."

"I have no clue what you're talking about, and I don't care! Just go!!"

The evil reflection continued to meet her gaze, not bothering to speak. The smug, gleeful look on that wicked face stated everything that needed saying, so words were completely unnecessary. It wasn't in the dark being's nature to blather pointless drivel.

"What did you do to them?"

"You know the answer, don't lie to me. I can smell what you're thinking."

"What did...you do?"

"What did I do? Don't you mean what did you do?"

Scootaloo shuddered at that last remark. She didn't enjoy where this conversation was going, but she couldn't stop it. It never even occurred to her to look away from the mirror. Her eyes were practically glued to it. She knew what the other pony was talking about. She knew it, and it scared her.

"Yes, you are beginning to accept it! Good, you need to know who you are, not them."

The orange pegasus remained silent, staring into the cracked glass before her. There was something about this mare that was staring back that was so familiar, and yet so different. What was it?

"You know who I am, don't you? You know it, and you keep denying it. You won't tell anyone else the truth, because you won't tell yourself. All darkness is is but a state of time and being, parallel to the light that all of your friends have relished for far too long. As if their traipsing around in the daylight will somehow justify what they've become. What you've become. You know who I am. Tell me, who am I?"

Scootaloo stood their quivering in her sense of terror at the sight of the abomination before her. She was utterly transfixed, but not by her own desire. There was something dark about this pony, and she didn't want to accept her own knowledge of it.

"Come now, who am I?"

The frightened little filly looked back at her accuser with a barely masked look of terror. But there was little left to hide. So she went with it.

"You're the stupid cunt that murdered my parents, that's what!"

"Beyond that, who am I? Who am I, really?"

"You're...an evil spirit."

"Don't be naive and stupid! You know goddamn well who the fuck I am!! Quite hiding from it!"

She desperately wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. But that evil look kept her pinned to the spot, and she continued to stare eye to eye with her oppressor. But she couldn't speak.

"Fine. If you choose not to admit it to yourself, then I'll tell you. I tell you whether you like it or not, whether you'd rather die than hear it! I am you. Do you honestly believe that by somehow dividing your mind into little fragments of itself, you can get rid of the biggest part of you?"

Scootaloo was unable to move, completely immobilized. The evil reflection continued to speak, and she couldn't help but listen.

"It was you that killed them! Not "me", not some random pony off the streets, nor anypony else! It was us, we did it together. You can hide from it, but not for long. I know why you did it, because I am you! They asked for what we gave them, and our little vengeance was our little story. You can hide it from anypony else, but don't you dare hide it from yourself!"

Scootaloo knew that the evil spirit, her evil spirit was right. She could still hear her parents screams when they died, their pleading eyes, wondering why she would do such a thing...No, it wasn't her! She didn't care what that stupid reflection said.

"GO AWAY!!"

The reflection only continued to stare back at her, that evil, cruel smile plastered to its lips in a perpetual sneer. The ghostly image wouldn't move, regardless of what she said, pleaded, or begged. It was there, continuing its silence. That's when she broke.

"I SAID GO AWAY!!"

Her hooves crashed against the glass, shattering the mirror and her disembodied self from her own wall. Scootaloo ignored the pain as her hooves came crashing into the image repeatedly, despite the huge gashes forming on her fetlocks. Soon, she was bleeding all over the place, her hooves a bloody, ragged mess. She continued to pound away, as if all her problems could be taken care of by merely destroying the object of her current issues.

Scootaloo slumped against the wall, suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline was slowly replaced with pain. Her head felt light from all the blood loss, but she was in no immediate danger. The convenience of clotting ensured that she wouldn't bleed out. This didn't, however, spare her the torment her hooves were delivering in repayment of her stupidity.

"Such foalish actions won't let you escape from yourself. No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, I'll be there, right next to you. I will always be there, your darker side. You cannot get rid of yourself, so stop hurting yourself trying."

The young mare was startled to here her own voice in her head, and whimpered slightly at the awareness of what she was. The one fact of herself that had become the one last truth in her lonely life. She was a murderer. There was no denying it, no escape to hide among. Except one.

"You're wrong, me. There is an escape, and you can't stop me from doing it."

"Are you sure? And what would that be?"

Scootaloo didn't bother responding. What would be the point? So she did the one thing she could do. The one, simple thing. There were still shards of broken glass scattered around the room, littering her newly stained floor. She didn't hesitate to pick one up.

"Freewill."

With that, she gouged into the right side of her neck with the shard, cutting open the Carotid Artery. Scootaloo remembered that the artery was on the right, and had she been wrong, death would be long in coming. But as it was, there were only seconds left before she went into shock, then out from consciousness. There was a smile on her face as her body began to spasm...