One week later.

Scootaloo sighed as she sat and stared at herself in her broken mirror. No matter how much she hated to admit it, her thoughts seemed to be right. There seemed only one way for her to sleep, and doing it again was out of the question if she had anything to say about it. She'd taken two lives already, and that was two too many. "Why am I so fucked up? Why can't I just sleep?" She waited, hoping to somehow hear some answer, but not being all too surprised in not getting one. She wiped her eyes and looked to her bed. She blinked. In a motion fast enough to be a sharp reflex, she shot her hand out for her familiar shard and closed her eyes as she slid it across the bottom of her chest, just above her stomach.

She crumpled once more to her knees as she caught her breath. She wasn't stupid. She never cut very deep. She'd figured out how to make sure she always just broke the skin, and it was almost second nature now, something she couldn't quite say she was proud of, but something that had recently proved somewhat useful. Upon collecting herself, she looked back to her bed and sighed in relief to see the white unicorn once more, and now whole.

She shuddered silently at the vision that plagued her moments ago, the vision of the last mare she could turn to dead. This wasn't new to her. She'd seen it every night when she would look over. The visions had steadily grown more vivid and grotesque each time, but pain, her tether to reality, the drug she hated the sting of with all the venom she could muster, but just couldn't kick, would always pull her right back, back to see her closest friend sleeping soundly, safely, completely innocent and unaware of the dark world only a few meters away.

The pegasus sighed and reached for her gauze as quietly as she could, glancing to Sweetie Belle occasionally as she did. She wrapped a fresh bandage around her rather long cut. She was used to cutting shallow, but length was something she still needed to work on. After silently putting the gauze away, she found one of her dark red undershirts and slipped it on. She knew it must seem weird for her to always wear the exact same colors, but she didn't really have much choice if she didn't want this getting out.

Time got away from the pegasus, as soon she noticed the rays of Celestia's sun shining throughout her room and heard a slight groan from her bed. She looked over to see a white unicorn sitting up and wiping the sleep from her eyes. Sweetie Belle looked over and tilted her head, opening her mouth to speak, but yawning before she could. "What's wrong, Scoots? Why'd you get out of bed?" Upon waking up a bit further, and growing more aware of the world around her, she continued. "Did you get cold or something, dear?"

Scootaloo blushed a bit, but quickly pulled her mind from where it was as she remembered she was wearing an undershirt. She shook her head and managed a smile and a chuckle. "Oh, uh, yeah. Just a bit."

Sweetie simply giggled and smiled, though it was rather short lived as she noticed the shard still in Scootaloo's hand. "Um, what are you doing with that?" Her eyes widened. "And, wh-why is there blood on it?"

Scootaloo felt as though her heart had stopped cold in her chest. She dropped the piece of glass. "What are you talking about? Blood? You must be seeing things." Scootaloo scolded herself mentally as she realized just who she was lying to, and it showed that she hadn't much weight behind her words.

Sweetie stood and walked to the dresser, her fillyfriend frozen in place. "This shard of glass. I keep seeing it." She reached the dresser and stopped. The edges were darkened with dried blood that wasn't washed off well enough. One side glistened freely as the sunlight reflected off of fresh, bright red blood.

Before Scootaloo could even speak, the unicorn turned, her horn lighting up as she lifted the pegasus's shirt up. Unable to react in time, Scootaloo could only gasp sharply as she felt the article of cloth rise and expose her midriff, then her chest, then, it stopped. The fabric dropped back down and the orange mare looked to Sweetie Belle, whose eyes were wide, scared, worried, but for Scootaloo. "Sweetie, it's not what you think, I swear! I'm not suicidal. Just, please, let me try to explain."

Sweetie Belle gulped and took a deep breath as she tried to calm down. Soon she managed to ease up enough to speak. "O-okay. Explain." She managed nothing more as she had to try her best to hold her nerves.

Scootaloo could tell that her fillyfriend wasn't holding together too well and figured she would be better off just opening up about everything she could instead of making her wait while she came up with something else. She took a deep breath and looked somberly to the unicorn. "Just, come with me to the kitchen. This is gonna take a while." Sweetie was nervous at this, but figured that walking, even such a short way, would likely help calm her some. Scootaloo picked up the shard and walked into the kitchen, with Sweetie following her somewhat nervously.

Sweetie sat at the kitchen table and Scootaloo began recounting her experiences lately, her insomnia for weeks after hearing about Rainbow Dash's death, her run in with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, but mentioning her release to sleep as merely 'something she wasn't proud of' before sighing. She began recounting from there about the visions she'd been having, and how she'd been using pain, especially cutting herself, as something of a tether to reality, and the only thing that's kept her as sane as she's managed to remain.

The pegasus turned to the unicorn who sat patiently and attentively, and now looked to her with a mix of concern and pity, something Scootaloo did not need to know anypony felt for her right now. Before she could continue onto anything more, however, Sweetie spoke up. "So, this whole time, you've just been putting on? You've just been acting strong for everypony?"

Scootaloo was caught slightly off guard, but managed a nod.

Sweetie Belle stood and rushed to hug Scootaloo, holding back tears as she did. "Why didn't you tell me? I could've helped. I could've done something, said something. Anything but leave you to deal with this all alone."

Scootaloo froze for a moment, but soon returned the hug tightly as something welled up inside of her. She felt every daunting emotion from the past weeks rushing to the surface, every moment of rage, depression, guilt, loathing, everything. Just as she felt she was about to cry, it stopped, peaked behind her eyes and unmoving. Sweetie Belle had pulled away, and Scootaloo's natural cold exterior fought back the tears as her comfort left her. She felt something in her heart and her mind tear. Before she could even figure out what it was, she heard Sweetie Belle speak, but couldn't understand a word. Within seconds, she was gone, out the door and off to somewhere, somewhere Scootaloo might know if she had been able to listen.

After a few moments, the pegasus dropped to her knees and slammed her fist onto the floor as whatever she felt before faded into anger and resentment of herself. She'd had somepony to be close to, somepony she could trust and turn to, that she could hold and know was real, and now she was gone. Knowing what had just happened, she would probably never come back.

"DAMNIT! Why did you have to screw this up you fucking whoarse?! You could have just cut your shoulder and said you fell. You could have told her something else. You could have..." Her train of thought faded as she choked back tears of her own volition now. She forced herself to her hooves and stumbled into her bedroom where she threw herself onto her bed and lay, hoping rather desperately to somehow find sleep, only to be constantly greeted by one recurring thought: You can't, because you haven't killed.

After a few hours of trying in vain to sleep, the pegasus awoke with a start at the sound of knocking on her door. Unable to summon her energy beyond getting up, she walked, bare, to the door and opened it only to find nopony there, as well as Luna's moon in the sky, the position giving that the time was maybe seven o'clock. She sighed and shut the door before turning back into her house, where she noticed a slightly familliar oddity.

Celestia's sun was nearing high noon as Sweetie Belle finally found her way back to the Boutique, rushing inside and searching for her sister. "Rarity!"

"I'm sorry Sweetie Belle, but I'm just a tad busy at the moment."

"Please, I need help with something. Scoots needs help."

A silence filled the boutique, followed shortly by light shuffling and soon after by hoofsteps. Rarity emerged from her new private room with her mane somewhat out of order. "Oh my, did things finally settle in on the poor thing?"

Sweetie Belle rushed over and hugged her sister. "No, worse. It hit her from day one and she's just been getting worse. She can't sleep unless she does something she only mentioned she wasn't proud of, which she's only done twice, and she has these crazy hallucinations and she stops them by cutting herself up. Rarity, she's losing it and I don't know what to do."

The fashion mare looked at her younger sibling with a hint of confusion and apprehension. "Sweetie Belle, darling, please tell me you didn't just run out of her house."

The unicorn frowned and looked away. "I, I told her I was going to see if somepony could help, but she didn't exactly seem to hear me, now that I think back."

Rarity grabbed her sister's arms and pulled her back enough for them to look at each other eye to eye. "Sweetie, the last thing anypony should do when a friend is having trouble like that is leave them alone. I know she said she isn't suicidal, I hope she isn't, but you can't simply trust her to stay that way, not when she has so many things on her shoulders."

Sweetie Belle's eyes teared up. "W-wait, so, I, I might've just-"

"Sweetie, look at me. I really don't think Scootaloo is the kind to take her own life. I'm sure if she were, she already would have. No, come to think of it, from what you've told me, she seems quite desperate to remember that she is, in fact, alive. The problem is that ponies like that tend to go one of two ways. I'm afraid one of them is going to happen, and I think you need to be prepared if you want to help her." Rarity gave a sigh as she softened her gaze. "Now, under normal circumstances, I would never permit the use of what I'm going to show you, at the very least not for these purposes, but I don't think you'll be able to do too much more than make sure she stays out of trouble."

The younger mare was very much sure that she didn't like where this was going, but she gave a nod as she gulped. "I, I just want to help her. I'll do whatever I can. It's the least I owe her after thinking she was okay for so long."

Rarity gave a nod and hugged Sweetie Belle tightly for a moment before stepping back. "Okay, now I'm going to show you a few things, and a new spell I picked up from, well, from experiences I'd much prefer to leave in the past for now. Are you ready?"

Sweetie wiped her eyes and gave a resolute nod. "I'm ready. Whatever it takes to help her."

Scootaloo flew down the stairs, landing with a loud clack on the concrete floor. She noticed the sheet in the center of the room again, but the table was uncovered. She wasn't sure why, but she once more walked over to the table, again finding a note:

Dear Scootaloo,

I know your life must be tough, what with you losing Sweetie Belle and all. Don't worry though. Things tend to work out in the end. Besides, you need to forgive yourself. It's not your fault you're on your way to becoming an unhinged sociopath. How about you just take the sheet off the mare over there and do what comes naturally?

~A Friend

This note was much shorter, and hit the pegasus much harder. It immediately brought her earlier anger to a boil. She didn't even have any reason to kill this pony, but she knew that she was done with all of this. She walked to the object in the center of the room, every part of her mind agreed that she was done being a pawn and that this pony would have to be set free. She gripped the sheet and ripped it away. The sight she saw froze her, she could feel the very blood in her veins drop from boiling to ice in an instant as she looked at the pegasus before her. She recognized the eyes, the mane, the coat, even the scratch. As she gazed with her violet eyes at the mare, she found them gazing back in utter horror.

The pony before her was, by all measure of appearance, her. The same orange coat, the same deep purple mane, the same light violet eyes, even her cutiemark, all perfect to the last detail, as if she were gazing into a mirror. The chill that took hold of her so quickly was steadily thawing and heating up again as she felt every ounce of her self-loathing seeming to focus on this doppleganger, this unfortunate look-alike, and she was finally about to let out every bit of it.

Scootaloo walked to the table, looking over the instruments. She picked up the knife from before and stalked over to the mare. "You fucking bitch! Guess what? It's about fucking time you got what was coming to you." The pegasus gripped her victim's left breast and slit it open, following suit with her right, the bound mare unable to make even a sound through the enchanted gag. Scootaloo tore the mammary tissues from her victim without hesitation or remorse before slicing off the skin left. She then reached for an instrument she'd managed to hear about from her hospital visits. It was a special instrument, a short, somewhat thin rod used to cauterize wounds and lesions. She turned it on and it almost instantly sparked to life, quickly reaching its usable temperatures.

Scootaloo walked over and traced the wand over every bleeding part of the mare's chest, singing her and ceasing the bleeding. Had Scootaloo looked into her eyes, she would have seen how much pain this was causing the mare, but she hardly cared. She wanted it to hurt the mare, to hurt HER, and she knew that no pain would truly be worthy of forgiveness. As such, she told herself that this was as terrible a pain as possible, and almost smiled in knowing that she was suffering. After ensuring the blood halted, she picked up a saw and once more approached the mare.

"You don't deserve these fucking wings." With that statement, Scootaloo set the saw in place, glad to see the contraption was made to perfectly extend a pegasus wing, with a slit in the back to fit a saw at the joint to the back. She couldn't help but smile as she sawed away at the appendage, rather quickly getting through it before she once more used the wand to cease the bleeding. She then walked to the other side and put the saw in place, only this time taking it slower, taking time to ensure the pain caused was quite thoroughly experienced. Upon making it through the second wing, she cauterized the wound and turned off the device before setting it on its tray, one she assumed was made specifically for the device to prevent fire, and luckily assumed correctly. She put the saw down and grabbed a new knife, one that could easily be called a dagger.

The pegasus walked back to the mare one last time and looked her in the eyes, seeing tears and suffering quite apparent in them. She allowed herself a rather grand smile before stepping close and running the blade over the mare's stomach, seeing it effortlessly slice through the skin even with so little pressure. She looked up and whispered into the mare's ear. "And now, after wanting it for so long, you finally get your ride to Luna's Garden, don't you, freak?!" Without another moment's hesitation, and in spite of the sound of her front door opening upstairs, Scootaloo began to wildly drive the dagger into the mare over and over, giving a grunt of frustration with each thrust as she slowly released her built up rage.

After a good minute of stabbing, Scootaloo finally stopped, pulling out the dagger one last time and setting it on the table. She let out a sigh of relief and looked up to notice a fairly shocked Sweetie Belle. Before she even had time to react properly, Sweetie was already rushing towards the body and using her magic to undo the bindings. "Scoots, you don't have to explain." She looked over and noticed what seemed like a disposal bin. "Just get this body in the bin and let me handle the rest."

Unsure of what else she could do, and suddenly reminded that she needed to make sure she didn't get caught after all of this, Scootaloo hurried over in time to catch the bloodied corpse. She carried it to the bin and dumped it inside as Sweetie focused her magic on the tools and blood. Scootaloo rushed back over to the stand and worked the wings out of their bonds before dropping them into the bin as well. By the time she turned back around, Sweetie Belle already made her way over and grabbed her arm, pulling her up the stairs and into the main part of the house.

Without wasting a second, Sweetie Belle helped Scootaloo into the bathroom and undressed herself before removing the bandages over the pegasus's cut from earlier. Sweetie shut the door and set Scootaloo onto the floor gently as she started letting the water for the shower warm up. "Scoots, are you hurt? You didn't cut yourself any more, did you?"

Finally having had time to let events settle in, Scootaloo brushed her curiosities aside and decided to focus on the fact that Sweetie Belle was with her once more. "Yeah, I mean, no. No, I'm fine. I didn't hurt myself, but-"

"But nothing." Sweetie Belle took a moment to breathe and calm down before walking over and kneeling by Scootaloo. "Look, you're like this more or less because I didn't think you could be affected this badly by everything. I should have been there and I wasn't. Now I am, and we're going to work through this one step at a time. Okay?"

Scootaloo's eyes widened. She wasn't sure what to say, but then her normal mind wasn't exactly in control again just yet. She blinked a few times before looking to the shower and down at her blood-dampened fur. Sweetie took the initiative and helped her fillyfriend to her hooves and into the shower before joining her. "Just relax. I'll get you cleaned up, and then we can try to sleep. I think I know what that thing you meant is, and if so, I really want you to sleep well."

Scootaloo leaned in and hugged the unicorn, her emotions from earlier finally overtaking her and spilling out as she cried, and cried. Sweetie wasn't expecting this, but knew now that it was best to let her let everything out. She remembered the new trick her sister had taught her and her horn lit up as she carefully scrubbed the blood from Scootaloo, and what little bit transferred over from herself, the entire time never letting go of the crying pegasus.

"Have I ever told you how amazing a job you do?"

"Why of course, you mention, not to mention show it, every time we speak. By the way, why in Equestria would anypony want to have such a garish and unruly coat?"

"Well, I can't let anypony recognize me. Besides, it's just temporary. Once we can let her know about everything, we can go back to normal for us and just use a spell of something."

"Well, now we have Sweetie in on this too. Not that she seemed to mind all too much, but it makes me rethink this whole issue. Are you positive Scootaloo is the mare you seem to think she is?"

"Look, the mare is a killer, plain and simple. She knows she gets a rush from it, and she knows it's her only ticket to dreamland. Now with Sweetie not being a stumbling block to work against, the rest should be easy."

"Are you positive you still want to wait the full period for the next one?"

"Actually, no. I think we can set her up with a few trips to the Garden between now and the next big one. Plenty of worthless junkies we can't put to much use for her to butcher."

"Darling, you are simply dreadful."

"And you love it. Now let's get back so I can repay you properly."

"Oh, my."

Author's Note

Rush edited. Sorry. Please let me know where I mucked it up. Actually, let me know anywhere I mucked up anything. I really want this story to be well done.