The fracture, the crack, the burning pain that lingered in the crevasse, the crumbling walls collapsing, leaving me incapacitated beneath a pile of smoldering rubble. But as one rock was removed, the burning sunlight peeking through the hole, I felt my heart skip a beat. As the bright pink hoof protruded through the opening, my body felt to melt as the silliest smile etched its way across my features.
Pulling me from the debris as those ocean blue eyes met with mine. I couldn’t help but cry; tears of unadulterated relief flew as a swarming colony of fireflies glow within. But as I rap my hoofs around her body, I could feel nothing. I looked back at her face, deteriorating and fading. Turning to dust as her bright smile faded off with the wind. Soon her entire body began to vanish before my disbelieving eyes.
I reached out for her, the fireflies dying, the tears burning, the pain seething. I cried out her name, but she only smiled before completely dissipating, the pink dust that remained drifting away in the wind.
My body crumbled, the strength in my legs wavered as my haunches met with the hard rock surface of the canyon. Stunned, unable to feel the workings of my brains anymore. Watching her just disappear before me… it left an unexplainable pain, creating a gash that simply won’t heal. A typhoon of lemon juice and salt pouring down on the blood soaked wound.
It stung, but I can’t really remember the horrendous sense of stinging that tormented me, for it was just too much for the average pony to handle.
But still, with all the agonizing throbs that wretched me, the image of that pink mare fading off with the wind hurt even more. Much more.
I just wanted to die. Die knowing that I couldn’t have her. Die knowing I don’t own the strength to succeed. Die knowing that I failed.
Die knowing she doesn’t love me.
But as I close my eyes, the world going black, I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I opened my eyes. No longer did I lie on ragged rocks of the canyon, but the marshy grass of a meadow. The wind was cool and soothing, the pain that pulsed within slowly died away, but I still felt a boiling heartache. I looked up from my natural bed in the grass, my eyes meeting with the myriad of stars above. It was then I felt at peace, but that happy moment subsided quickly.
The stars above began to move frantically, taking the form of something. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but with strained eyes and a running imagination, I then saw it. I saw her. Constellations of her, smiling down on me with that loving gaze I couldn’t forget.
My stomach churned and my heart began to hurt again. I couldn’t help but cry once more, rolling on my side as pitiful spews of saddened breath emanated from my mouth. The constellations began to frown as I heard some voice whisper in the wind.
“What’s wrong?”
My crying ceased as the world went to a standstill. I looked up again, greeted with only a black sky. I remained silent as death, waiting for the voice to return, my heart pounding like a drum of thunder, accompanied by the crazed lightning bombarding my brain.
The voice didn’t return, neither did the wind or constellations. I could help but repeat those words in my mind.
“What’s wrong?”
So caring, so soft, so serine, so loving. Just like her. I yearned for more than just those two simple words.
Again, my world felt to spin in a tornado of both fear and confusion. The ground trembled beneath my quaking legs and the sky fell like a tattered cloth. Everything seemed to collapse before me as I closed my eyes and screamed. Screamed for help, remorse, mercy. For a bellowing shriek pierced through the accursedly cold air.
“DO IT!” the voices screamed, “YOU COWARD!”
Falling to my haunches, the coursing sense of self doubt that once plagued me felt to fade away as an ocean of confidence flooded me from inside out.
The voices continued their shrieks and moans, demanding that ‘I do something about it’. Though their orders were vague, I knew very well what they meant. I looked up to the darkened sky above, screaming into the violent winds.
“ENOUGH!”
Again, all went silent, the tension gone in a blink of an eye. As I lowered my hooves from my ears and opened my eyes, I now stood in Sugar Cube Corner, the moon glowing down on me. The roads were quiet as mice, my brain finally earning the silence it needed. But I was left with a million open doors in my head, each filled to the brim with questions.
Why am I at Sugar cube Corner? How did I get here? Is this really happening?
My thoughts were cut short as a pony stepped out between an alley of two buildings. The darkness obscured his face and only the skulking shadow and thumping hoofsteps signified his presence.
My blood went cold as he slowly approached the massive bakery. He didn’t seem to take any notice of my presence, but I couldn’t find the courage to call out to him, for my throat had turned to a dry riverbed of fear.
But as the mysterious pony stepped into the light of a street lamp, his features revealed after what seemed like decades of suspense, my mind felt to unravel, for the pony who stood before me couldn’t be real.
For I saw myself.
His eyes weary and legs trembling under the heavy weight of stress. I stood frozen as I watched myself slowly approach the bakery entrance. It was then that I felt it, the heartache, radiating from him. The sharp cracks of a shattered soul, fumbling about in an empty ribcage like a misguided child’s toy.
Then I saw what rested in his hoof. A letter. The paper spotted with dried tears and broken hope.
It was then I realized where I was. What day it was. What I was looking at.
I watched myself bend down, slipping the letter through the mail slot of the door, and walking away, his storm of depression walking away with him.
That is when I woke up, coated in a cold sweat, my body aching after the most surreal dream I have ever witnessed.
Left feeling scarred and wounded, but a new thing had found a place within me.
Confidence.
I don’t know why, but that dream told me something. Told me something that lingered far beyond the comprehension of anypony else.
I earned my blade and shield, the armored heart of a soldier. For I know what to do, what my dream told me to do.
To confess the words that are left locked away in the bank of emotion.
The words I yearn to say.
The words that I only wish will be accepted.
Pinkie Pie, I Love You.
