Scootaloo rubbed her eyes as she sat up on her bed. Her bed? It had been years since she had seen her bed. “What’s going on? Where am I?” she asked to the air as she looked around the ominously familiar room. It had been forever and a day since she had seen her old room. That room she had lived in before that fateful day had occurred. Before her parents had passed away and left her to fend for herself in the world. A voice broke through the silence of confusion and captured Scootaloo’s attention.
“Are you ready to go honey?” A mare’s smooth voice asked from behind her door. The words sent chills down Scootaloo’s spine. The sweet voice was so distantly familiar, yet intimately crystal clear.
“Mommy?” She tried to whisper, but all she could do was mouth the word.
“I’m ready. We need to get to the station soon,” Her father responded. Tears of joy came to Scootaloo's eyes. Her parents were back.
“I’m still not sure about leaving her alone,” her mother said as her hoofsteps came closer to Scootaloo's door.
“It’s just for the morning, honey. I’m sure she‘ll be fine.”
“Well I’m going to let her know where we're going,” her mom said as she cracked open the door to Scootaloo’s room.
“Scoots?” she asked as she poked her head inside.
Scootaloo’s eyes grew wide in astonishment. It really was her. “Mommy!” she shouted in joy as she galloped to her mother and clung onto her neck, burying her face into her mother’s soft mane.
“Well good morning to you, too, Scoots,” her mother laughed as she tried to pry the orange pegasus filly from her side. “You’re acting like you haven’t seen me in years.”
“Mommy you’re back! I don’t know how, but you’re back,” Scootaloo said as she squeezed her mother’s neck. “Please don’t go anywhere this time.”
“What do you mean Scootaloo? We’ve always been here,” her mother said. “But I have some bad news. Your father and I are leaving, but just for the morn-”
“No! You can’t go, you just got back!” Scootaloo shouted as tears flooded down her cheeks.
“Scootaloo,” her father said in a somber tone. “Your mother and I have to go to a job interview.”
Scoots paused, the tears of completely confused joy still streaming from her eyes. A flash of the past had blinked into her mind, a deja vu of a memory she had purposefully locked away to remove the feelings that had come with it. That image was the image her eyes were giving her mind right now. The realization hit her like a freight train. It was the day her parents died.
“No,” She said as her forelegs weakened. She stumbled to the ground and collapsed in a heap of disbelief and terror.
“No, don’t go,” she whispered, barely able to control herself. Her body began to violently shake as the new terror of losing her parents overcame the joy of seeing them again.
“Scootaloo, enough of this. Stop pitching a fit,” her father said as he turned toward the door.
“No daddy! Don’t go! I’ll never see you again!” she screamed as she raced to her father and latched onto his hind leg.
“Don’t be so ridiculous, Scootaloo. I expected a better attitude from you than this.” Her father pushed her off of his leg and stomped to the door. The words bit into Scootaloo like acid.
“I- I-” was all she could say before the convulsion inducing sobs overtook her body.
“What do you think you are doing?” her mother snapped at her father as she curled up on the floor around Scootaloo. “She’s just a filly.” The warmth of her mother immediately began to smooth the pain of her dad’s harsh words.
“Mommy?” Scootaloo asked as she looked into her mother’s eyes. “Please don’t go… please.”
“Scootaloo, I have to. Daddy needs me to be with him to get this job.”
“I don’t care about the job,” Scootaloo said, her small body beginning to tremble again.
“Well we do,” her dad said resolutely. “Honey, we have to go.”
“Oh, we can wait for a few minutes,” Her mother said as she stroked Scootaloo’s purple mane. “There’s no need to be upset. We’re only going to be gone for a little while, that’s all.”
“No, no you aren’t,” she said as a new wave of tears emerged from her eyes. “You’ll never come back. Don’t go, please don’t go.”
“Scootaloo, we have to go. Otherwise we’ll lose our house.” She hugged scootaloo tightly, trying to quell her filly’s trembling.
“If you go, I will lose you and daddy.” She whispered as the fatigue of sadness began to overtake her. Her brain had begun to put her to sleep, exhausted from the stress of the emotional flood that had so rapidly surged through her. She yawned as her young mind began to slowly drift off to sleep. “Don’t go.” She whispered as she fell asleep against her mother’s protective warm body. The air was filled with a heavy silence. Both of her parents held their breath, praying that their little filly had drifted off to neverland.
“Well that was quite the reaction,” her father whispered as her mother picked her up and carried her back into her room.
She laid Scootaloo down onto her bed and lovingly tucked her in. “Goodnight, my little pegasus.”
“Should we give it to her now?” her father asked.
“Yeah. It will keep her entertained while we are gone,” Her mother said as she quietly walked to the closet and lifted the scooter from the top shelf. The glossy red wheels rolled silently over the wooden floor as Scootaloo’s mother moved it to her filly’s bedside. Her father brought in the helmet and gently placed it onto Scootaloo’s pillow.
“Stay safe while you’re on that contraption,” her father whispered as he gently kissed her on the cheek. “Now let’s get out of here before she wakes up again.”
Her parents crept out of her bedroom and quietly closed the door. “Are you ready?” her father asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”
Scootaloo was violently stirred from her repose by a loud blast of thunder. Her room was dark even though the clock on the wall read 10:00. The day was masked by the thunderstorm that battered the ramshackle old house.
“Mommy?” she asked in a whisper, only to be answered by a startling flash of lightning and a roar of thunder. “Daddy?”
There was no response. She tried shouting louder, trying to make herself heard above the violent storm. She cried for her parents over and over again, too afraid to get out of her bed, too afraid that her fears might have come true. Another flash of lightning illuminated her room with its harsh white light. Scootaloo pulled her helmet onto her head and ducked beneath her covers, her entire body shaking.
“Are you there?” she screamed, again the storm was the only thing that answered her with a bellowing crash that shook the glass in the windows.
“Hello?” a stallion’s voice shouted from somewhere in the house.
“Daddy?” Scootaloo yelled at the sound of the voice. “Daddy, I’m in my room!”
The door burst open, but the relief did not come. The stallion was not her father. “There you are.” The stallion said as he walked to Scootaloo’s bedside.
“Who are you?” She asked as she scooted herself away from the stranger.
“Scootaloo, I’m sorry.”
Her body was frozen in place, her biggest fear had come to pass. “My parents are okay, right?”
“I’m so sorry, but there's been a terrible accident.” Scootaloo’s wide eyes began to well up with tears, but she couldn’t bring herself to blink them away. “The airship your parents were on disappeared in the storm.” The stallion said, not quite meeting her eyes as he held back his tears. “We are doing everything we can to find them.”
“She promised she would come back,” Scootaloo whispered as she began to rock back and forth, clutching the purple helmet against her stomach. “She promised...”
