Pain of the broken heart. Pain of the broken mind. And most of all, pain of the broken soul. Pain is immortal. Pain can have no end. Pain is what they call “an eternity.”
But an eternity can be broken, snapped like a cord. And nothing is better at cutting cords than the sharpest of knives.
A broken unicorn lay curled up on her floor. She knows pain. For all she knew, she may have invented the definition of pain. That would be nice, right? Inventing the definition for the thing that every pony who ever lived, and who ever will live, experiences in one point of their life?
But she didn’t care. Not anymore. Not since her death. And his death. And his abandoning her. These events, one after the other, had broken her. And now she was prepared to break eternity.
“Why…” She whispered to herself in a gravelly voice. Who was she now? A memory. The dream of a party. No, several parties. And she had been the life of them. Vinyl Scratch was her name, but they all knew her as DJ-P0N3. The mistress of bass, the queen of wubs.
A memory. Nothing more. A dream. A fantasy, now dead. None of that would ever be regained. Not her life, not her friends, and especially not her love. That which had been stolen with a promise. And a lie.
It had all started with the trip.
“It’s only for a few weeks. I’m only visiting Griffin while he get’s settled into his new house. Trust me, I’ll be back before you know it.”
Too painful.
“Hey, who said I was going to miss you? I might rent out your room while you’re gone!”
Too strong.
“Might as well, or neither of us will have a room when the mortgage company comes and shuts us down for not paying rent!”
“...”
“Is something wrong?”
“Nah, I’m… I’m just going to miss you, that’s all.”
“Aw, come here. I promise on Celestia’s sun and Luna’s moon, and on my soul, that I will be back before you know it. Alright?”
“Alright. I wub you.”
“Wub you too.”
That day. So long ago it seemed. The unicorn looked behind her, at his room. His room that she had never touched. They were going to get married as soon as he had returned, so they slept in separate rooms until after the wedding. But now… who was going to get married now? Weren’t a couple supposed to have unwavering trust in each other?
“Please. No, not anymore… just leave me be for a few minutes. That’s all the time I need.” The memories paid no heed to her begging, and swamped her again.
“Silver Song, due to your degree from the Royal Canterlot University in science and technology, you are to come with us. There is a radiation pit that needs immediate diagnosis.”
“Can my wife come?”
“I’m sorry, but she does not qualify. The conditions are dangerous, and we don’t want pedestrians getting killed. You may say goodbye, then you will come.”
“Octavia, will you promise me that you and Vinyl will stay out of trouble?”
“Oh Silver. I promise! Steel promised to be home in a few days, and we lived together before meeting the two of you! We’ll be fine, honest!”
“Yeah, we’ll be able to spend some quality musician-bonding time, right Tavi?”
“Exactly! We’ll be fine. Trust me.”
“Alright. I love you. I’ll be home by the end of the week.”
“I love you too. See you when you get back.”
Broken promises. Stallions. Mare time. Lies. Deceit. Kill. Kill. Kill.
“Goddesses. What did I do to deserve this?”
Ponies are happy most of the time. It was written in their DNA. Joy ruled the land of Equestria. Harmony and camaraderie were the prevailing virtues. Life couldn’t be better in any country in the universe!
But there were some ponies who had fallen. Not to darkness, or malicious intent, but to sadness. Depression. And in rare cases, the easy way out.
Suicide.
“It’s okay, Tavi! Silver will be here soon! Just hang on!”
“Vinyl, it wasn’t blood I left back in the alleyway! It was ME! I left bits of myself in the dirt!”
“It’s fine! The doctors here will patch you right up, don’t worry…”
“I didn’t want to die so soon. I wanted to have kids. I wanted to grow old with my special somepony…”
“Don’t say that, Octavia!”
“Oh Vinyl. I love it when you say my full name…”
“Miss Scratch?”
“Oh my Faust! Where’s Silver, Tavi needs him now!”
“I was sent by the Canterlot Department of Scientific Safety to inform you that Mister Silver Song was killed yesterday. There was a section of loose ground near the radiation pit we had him monitoring, and he fell in. His helmet shattered upon collision with the ground, and the radiation… oh, Faust… forgive me. He died quickly.”
“...”
“Miss Scratch?”
“...you have to be bucking kidding me.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, look at it. My best friend is dying, and just when she needs her husband, he dies. This is a prank! Silver, you can come out now…”
“I regret to say that this is no prank.”
“You’re kidding. He has to be alive!”
“Vinyl…”
“Tavi! Listen to this! This joker thinks his prank is funny. Isn’t that strange?”
“Vinyl…”
“Funny stuff, eh? Tavi?”
“Vinnie!”
“Huh? Yeah Tavi?”
“I… I’m not sure how to say this… but---”
“Don’t worry. I promise you, we’ll get through this. Steel promised to be back today! I left a note for Silver about you coming here, maybe Steel will find it and hurry over! We’ll get through this… together, okay? Tavi? Octavia, are you in shock or something?”
“Miss Scratch, make way, the doctors need to get in… Miss Scratch.”
“Tavi! Come on, this isn’t funny. Wake up! Tavi, WAKE UP! OCTAVIA! PLEASE!!!”
“Miss Scratch, there isn’t anything we can do. We’re sorry, but… she’s gone.”
No. No no no! NO!
“OCTAVIA!!!”
Remembering was one of the only things a pony could do when they are left all alone in the big bad world, the world which abandoned them, and therefore must be abandoned in return. But remembering was just too painful. Too much for a broken heart that couldn’t go on.
“I waited for you…” The unicorn said to the air around her. How she wished it would abandon her like everything else in this world.
And she had. She had waited for him for days. Days turned into years. And into what felt like centuries. Patience. Agony. The shattering of a heart. Snapping of trust.
He never returned. Though she waited for him for all this time, continuing to tell her tired heart ‘He’ll be here tomorrow,’ he vanished, never to be seen again. He was like another of the ghosts that haunted the unicorn now.
Pain lasts for eternity. But eternity can, in fact, be broken.
But the true battle is fought over strength of will needed to break such an unbreakable force.
Images of her past surrounded her. Her magenta eyes that had seen everything and more looked across the items that she had laid in front of her. She didn’t move much anymore. She only left her position on the floor to use the restroom or eat and drink when she had starved long enough, only enough to barely keep her living.
A picture of the four of them. Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Silver Song, and Steel Masquerade.
“Silver, you always were the serious one. Pretty random in your early years, I was surprised when you mellowed out.” She looked then at Steel. The special somepony, the bass to her wubs, the one who had promised to always be there.
“Quite the charmer, you know. Tavi later said it was no surprise I fell in love with you…” And finally, Octavia. Sweet, melodic Octavia. The most amazing cellist in all of Equestria and beyond. The best friend a friend could ask for.
The unicorn looked at what she had once been. What she should have been. What she should be. How had she fallen to this? What had started this descent into Tartarus, shadows, and to some, insanity?
A pair of goggles, with tinted lenses. They had once hid Vinyl Scratch from the world. From the misfortunes that it brought. Or at least, that was the plan. But plans change, as was now evident. The lens in one frame was shattered, as if to represent the hole that had opened to let in the waters of tragedy to fill her soul.
A bow tie. A solitary pink bow tie. Blood stained the white collar, an all-too-clear memory of the night where Vinyl Scratch had died. The night where they had all died, in her eyes.
A scarf. It was what Steel had given Vinyl the night he proposed, with the ring hidden in a fold in the warm fabric. He had brought it out for her as a reminder that he would return, and he would always be there when she needed him. But like all the others, he had lied.
And a certain… something. Not many ponies considered it out-of-the-ordinary while in the kitchen. In a bedroom, maybe a form of self-defense. But in a living room, a few inches from one’s hoof? Anypony can realize what was going to happen.
“So it ends.” She whispered to the air, to Tavi, to Silver, and to Steel. Slowly, she picked the knife up with her hoof, the sharp edge gleaming in the light of the moon shining through the windows.
In an old movie, the stallion who had left would burst through the door, and stop her from doing what she intended to do with the knife. She half expected something of the sort to happen, like she was in one of the old movies.
But this was real life. Nopony was coming. Nopony knew. Nopony would know before it was too late.
She shakily brought the knife up… and attempted to cut the wrist of her foreleg. Warm blood trickled out of the wounds, but by the third cut, she realized this was going to take too long. It was funny, she thought, how she had been sure she would tough out the slow process of bleeding to death, making a bold statement for… what exactly? It didn’t matter anymore, because she wasn’t going to make it that long.
Her hoof rose to her neck. Just one cut, and she would be free. Free of the chains of this world. Free of sadness of loss, for she would see her friends again. Again. A second start. A fresh beginning.
I am Violet Lynn Scratch, Vinyl Scratch, DJ-P0N3. And I am not stuck in the loop!
The knife had a smooth cut. At first she didn’t feel anything. Than blood started coming out, and she realized what she had done. She screamed. When she looked up, she saw somepony. A pony with a sad look on her face, who had tears in her eyes.
You had so much to do in life, She mouthed silently. Vinyl’s eyes also began tearing up, and she cried. As she lay on the ground, her life force staining the carpet, she cried for the first time in a period of a decade-and-a-half. She cried for her friends who had died a year ago, for the friend who had died in a fight she had started, for the years of striving for praise from her mother, praise she never had earned…
And then she was cut free, and was led off by a gray mare with a flowing black mane.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
A granite-grey pony trotted into town. A cart rolled behind him, filled with bags. Bags of money, clothes, and trinkets. He was returning home, home from a long trip of riches and adventures. Returning home to the mare he loved.
“The buck is going on here…” He said to himself as he saw a strange sight in the Ponyville cemetery. A funeral. A pony hadn’t died for a while. At least that had been true before he left on his trip, so a funeral was strange. The ponies all wore black, and one pony stood next to the coffin, which lay open next to the grave. He walked over, and began to pick up what the pony by the coffin was saying.
“---I want you all to know I died happy. I am with my friends again. I am going to live in eternity with loved ones, loved ones who will love me back. And whoever reads this will must understand what I did allowed me to get out of the hole of depression I had fallen into.”
Steel Masquerade sat down at the back, interested in finding out who had kicked the bucket this time. Hopefully not someone he knew, considering he didn’t want to think he had been gone for so long, that his friends had all become old and died of age. He smirked a bit at the thought.
“I might as well explain how you are reading this. I had decided on doing this a week ago, as of writing this, and I wrote a will beforehand. I suppose it was unnecessary because everypony I was going to leave things to are now dead or gone. But if a certain stallion shows up again, then he is to have the bits in my wall safe.
“The events that caused this shift in mental peace are coming with me to my grave, although the government will know what happened. Like they’d tell you all. However, I will say that this isn’t over you all. The public. Or the friends who didn’t die. I love you all, and I hope that you all live life to the fullest.”
“Excuse me, who died?” The stallion asked a mare in a black veil. She turned, tears in her eyes.
“It was Vinyl Scratch, the DJ. She committed suicide, they found her in her living room yesterday.”
“Wha--- what?” Tears were already welling in his eyes. Without another word, he shakily stood up and trotted over to the open coffin. He didn’t care about the looks he got for interrupting the reading of the will. He had to see her. One last time.
Vinyl’s hair was still her trademark style, but it seemed... neater, somehow. Her eyes were shut, and she held a record to her chest as if she was sleeping after a party. She looked so peaceful. A smile sat on her face.
“This was the last drop. The final thing I can cause that will shake the walls, even if they’re metaphorical this time.” The pony with the will read.
“I never wanted this!” Steel shouted. “I wanted to come home with money to throw her a proper wedding! To buy her a proper ring! I just wanted to give her happiness.”
Oh, Steel. A shadow under a tree whispered. You didn’t need money to make me happy. You were all I needed. Then she was gone, like a bit of dust in the wind, leaving the grey stallion as he wailed his pain out to the grey sky above.
Author's Note
This story came to me after I found the picture used for cover art, which made my friend (who considers Vinyl to be his waifu) rage like nobody's business. The story was mainly written to antagonize this reaction, but then I decided to publish it. It's on Google Docs here:
