Drop.

Pinkie leaned forward until gravity took her past the point of no return. Her hoof kicked the stool she'd used to reach the noose out from beneath her, causing her full weight to pull it tight around her pretty little neck and cut off her breath. More painful was the pressure on her carotid arteries, her hooves instinctively scrabbled at the rough rope to attempt to loosen it a bit, but it was already too late...

She squirmed, eyes rolling back as her hooves tugged and scraped at the rope choking the life out of her. Something had gone wrong, she'd learned a fair deal about this sort of hanging from somewhere. She began blacking out after a minute,  but it took her a full twenty to eventually expire.

She stared at herself, her dusky face in the mirror, feeling fuzzy and weak, before finally giving up the ghost.

She woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed in a cold sweat. The sun was beginning to go down over Ponyville. Pinkie could hear the sounds of patrons in the storefront downstairs. She sighed to herself as she laid back down.

She rolled onto her side, staring out the window as the moon started to come up. Pumpkin knocked, and they both entered her bedroom. Casting a glance over the pitiful lump in the sheets, splattered with pools of silver blood that highlighted the cheerful color and pattern of her bedding, they shook their head.

They knew better than to invite her down to supper, tonight. She would tell them to leave her alone, or that she wasn't hungry. Aunt Pinkie wasn't hungry frequently, these days.

Eventually, Pinkie slept again. This time, more than a nap, and this time not broken by any strange dreams involving her violent end. She yawned and struggled out of bed, shaking her mane out and trotting towards the bathroom.

First, a quick shower. She stood under the warm spray for quite a while, scrubbing away the stickiness she had accrued over the night. She smiled a little bit as she turned off the water and shook herself dry.

She grabbed down a towel and finished drying herself, pulling a brush onto her hoof and running the stiff bristles through her mane to finish straightening and neatening it. Satisfied, she squeezed a small amount of toothpaste onto her brush.

She hummed as she brushed for a full sixty seconds. She spat, rinsed her mouth out with warm water, then a shot of the spearmint-flavored antiseptic. With a slight wince as it irritated a cavity, she sighed a little bit, before sipping a fluoride rinse into her maw and swishing it.

Her alarm clock chirped cheerfully in her bedroom, causing her to flick the strand of floss she had into the garbage. Four AM. Time for her morning to officially start. She smiled as she ventured downstairs as quietly as she could manage with shod hooves.

Immediately she moved to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee, cooking herself a fried egg inside a piece of toast for breakfast while she waited on the pot. Setting both on a tray, she trotted to a small table near the kitchen window, settling down and pouring a small measure of syrup across her meal.

She ate in her own silent companionship, overcome with a deep melancholy as she gave the two empty chairs at her table a pointed look. She and Fluttershy used to eat breakfast together… And then Dash would come in a little bit later for coffee and a bagel…

But they wouldn’t be coming today. Never again. None of her friends would remember that today was her birthday.

Pinkie sighed deeply, and returned to her meal. The twins would be waking up soon. Before getting them up for school, she rose and carefully washed her dishes.

She smiled to herself as she gently shook her charges awake, venturing downstairs to make them a breakfast of buckwheat pancakes while they got ready for school. She smiled sadly and watched from the doorway as they ate in silence, before venturing upstairs to begin decorating. Today was her birthday, after all.

Too bad nopony would show. Perhaps it was time for her childhood friends to make an appearance.

A few hours later, she was smiling crookedly in the midst of a semi-circle made by the inanimate friends she'd made as a filly. Careful hooves were knotting a section of rope into a tight noose, with a lot of extra slack left in it.

She took a deep breath and made sure everything the Cake twins would need was left out on her bed, before trotting slowly out onto her balcony. Standing on the railing as Zecora would, she carefully tied the end of the rope around one of the roof's gables, so she'd swing out away from the balcony and the sudden stop at the bottom of the rope would snap her neck.

Quick. More or less instant, painless. She would be with her friends again, in the Everafter. She smiled softly and took a deep breath as she nudged the bottom of the noose against her chin.

Her attention was caught down on the ground by a flash of white. She paused, tilting her head as she bit her lip, one ear flicking. On the cobbles before Sugarcube Corner, somepony in an obscuring cloak carried a card bearing the note "Drop!". Why hadn't they called out to her if they were being so mean?

She shook her head as her ears pinned, the mare looking up at the sky for a moment, thinking of how Dash used to flash across it like a multicolored fire. She blinked as she found herself peering back at the ground far below her again. The word on the card had changed to "Don't?"

Now she had a mystery on her hooves. She snorted and hopped off the railing, tearing through the building before throwing open the doors to the sweet shop. She had exited just in time to see the pony's cape flutter around the corner.

She snorted again and pawed, leaving the door standing open as she charged down the busy Ponyville street, making the turn and casting about for the mare. There! Down the lane that lead to Carousel Boutique!

Pinkie would catch her, she would make her regret being such a MEANIE. She laughed out loud to herself, her mane flowing and frizzing in the wind caused by her flat-out run in the direction the other mare had gone.

There! Leaving the boutique with one of Rarity's saddlebags! Stealing from a (former) friend and being mean to her! That just wouldn't stand. Unfortunately, the mare was much younger than she was. Her knee ached as a filly lent her scooter to the chase.

But it was no use, no matter how fast she ran, the other was always a step ahead. Sometimes leading her down dead alleys just to disappear, and re-appear running across the mouth of the alley.

At one point, a pink mare beamed and held out a cup of water to her as she ran. She took it in her teeth and tipped it up to take a sip, before jerking her head to douse her face in the cool water.

"Come on... catch up... do it, Pinkie!"

She noticed the mare beginning to tire, grinning as she watched the other catch a cab. Well, two could play at that. She simply told the pink mare in the tracings to follow. Somehow the other managed to elude them. She huffed and tossed a hoofful of bits, hopping down and tearing off in the direction she thought she'd seen the mare.

There! There she went! Pinkie knew where she was being lead now. The curly-maned mare snorted and pawed as she slowed to a trot, hoofing one of Applejack's barn doors the rest of the way open. She entered slowly, looking around in the dimness.

A sudden flurry of motion started from one corner, and she pounced. Her heavy Earth pony body collided with something solid, and both were sent sprawling out on the floor in the old hay. She grinned a little bit and ripped open the cloak.

She was greeted by a melancholy smile she'd seen in her mirror just that morning. A pink mare of muted pink, with a straight-hanging darker-colored mane. As she tried to process this, the mare leaned up and brushed her snout with Pinkie's. The interior of the barn was decorated, and a cake stood on a small table. This all felt familiar...

Suddenly, she remembered- she'd been seeing this mare all day. A pink mare in a tracksuit had given her water. A straight-maned filly had given up her scooter. A pony with balloons on her flank had worn a cab-puller's cap and accepted her hoofful of bits.

As she collapsed onto her haunches, the other her looped her forelegs around her barrel. She whispered, softly, under her breath. Her words carried no less impact for their volume.

"You'll never need to be alone again... Because I will always be your friend."