“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” ― Laurell K. Hamilton
The syringe hovered patiently in front of my face, its presence seeming to call to me as I gazed into the glass tube. As I rolled the syringe around in front of me, the black viscous liquid stuck to the sides of the glass, coating it in a vile dark brown lining. Never before had the miserable toxic black cocktail that lay calmly nestled inside look as inviting to me as it did now. With just one simple movement, all of my troubles would be gone once more. All of the pain that plagued my aching heart, replaced with simple unjudging numbness. I didn’t care about the after effects that drug would raise in it’s destructive wake. If anything could replace the searing pain of my mistake, it would be worth it in the end… With a deep breath, the syringe lowered to my vein, its sharp tip resting on my matted pristine white fur.
“Come on!" I mentally yelled to myself as the needle across raked my skin, leaving behind small cuts in my flesh as it scraped across the surface. “You deserve this for the way you treated her. Just pushing her aside like she was nothing. She was your whole entire life and you just let it slip through your hooves, not even trying to fight at all to keep her around. For months she begged you to be there for her, yet you just ignored her.”
Tears began to flow from my eyes. The small droplets trickled down my face and landed on the hard concrete street, the small sound easily muffled by the sounds of the city. As I began to look around the alleyway, I saw a sight that was all too familiar. The crimson brick buildings around stretched high into the sky blocked the moon’s blissful glow from providing too much light into the passage. Random graffiti from countless unknown ponies plastered the many walls providing a colourful contrast to the otherwise bland stone surface. I could feel a breeze beginning to blow in through the buildings, causing my skin to shudder slightly as the brisk air brushed across my fur. With a heavy breath, I sunk deeper into the wall I lay against.
Everything had started to slip into this self-destructive norm. There were times I could go a month or two before I thought about her, but every time something would remind me and I'd start to slip back into this gutter, merely begging for my relentless emotions to give me a break.
With a small brush with my hoof, I wiped the moisture from my eyes and found my gaze shifting back toward the needle once more. In one simple motion, the needle tip plunged deep into my vein, a small amount of telekinesis pushing the plunger in behind it as it the needle continued into my skin. In an euphoric rush the drug filled my body, dulling any of the pain and self loathing that it encountered as it coursed throughout my nervous system. Even after all these times, the feeling that I get never ceases to amaze me, all of that guilt and sadness washed away in instant.
After a couple of seconds, all I could feel was the small metal tube that lay still inserted into my fore-leg. Using the little telekinesis I could muster I pulled the syringe slowly from the vein, a small drop of the repugnant mixture landing on my fur. The awful smell of the liquid filled my nose almost instantly. I could feel my body beginning to relax as the drug circulated more within my body. I lay down on the cold ground to avoid falling flat on my face from the inevitable black-out. I sat in the welcoming darkness for what seemed like hours, no thoughts entering my head as I basked in the brief reprieve from my own guilt. My body eventually began to relax from the shock of the foreign substance now inside me, giving me some small control back. I reached a hoof into the small black bag that lay in a ball at my feet. Taking extreme caution to avoid the other two syringes that lay in my bag, I pulled out a small picture from one of the many small side pockets and slowly raised it towards my face.
The picture was one of the happiest moments of my life, which felt like it had happened forever ago. In the picture sat the mare of my dreams, calmly sitting on a small wooden chair with a smile on her face. A small violin lay softly nestled in her neck, one hoof holding the instrument firmly in place, and the other gracefully pulling the bow across the violin's taught strings. Most ponies believed that she could only play the cello, but they would have been sadly mistaken if they had gotten to know her. The amount of skill that she had with most string instruments was mind blowing. For one pony to be talented in so many different instruments was nothing short of amazing.
Her raven coloured hair in the picture was more sporadic than usual, a look that suited her quite well, the disheveled look of her mane complementing her grey fur. However her looks were not the reason why I held onto the small photograph even after all these years. That day had been the first time she had ever agreed to play a private show for me in our small house just outside of Canterlot. I closed my eyes and let my memories start to replay that night in my head. The beautiful sounds that came from the small instrument were unlike anything that I heard her play before. Each note seemed to be dripping with emotion, each conveying it's own small message, their soft voice demanding to be heard.
Two hours later, the set had finished, and she put the violin on the table, looking over to me with the biggest smile I'd ever seen in my life. She knew that it was different than what she had ever played before. A new sense of emotion had filled each note with a new meaning and purpose, the one thing that her music had been lacking all the years that I knew her.
The one thing that baffled me to this day, was that I was the one that had helped her finally realize a new purpose to the brilliant harmonies that resounded from any of the instruments she chose. For many years, famous musicians from all around Equestria complimented her for her impressive string skills. However every single one of them had said the same thing. They had all said that her music was perfect in almost every single regard, every note played with perfection but there was no emotion behind them. For years I watched her try to find a solution to the countless like minded criticisms, and everything thing she tried had failed to that point. But that simple act of her playing for me, made her realize the one aspect that she had been missing. With a deflated sigh, I folded the picture back into the small shape that had once been, and placed it back inside of the bag. As I looked up towards the sky, I couldn't help but think about what I could have done differently over the years that we had been together.
"Why did I let her go? I should have noticed what my stupid mistakes would have cost me..." Questions continued to roll around in my head as the drugs in my veins continued to take their effect. The feeling in my hooves was now gone, and I could feel the impending blackout of drug starting to encroach on my body. My eyes had started to become heavy, an increasingly impossible struggle to keep them open for any while longer. I lay into the cold wall behind me and closed my eyes, letting the blackness engulf my world.
Octavia sat on the immaculate wooden stage, her cello resting on her shoulder. As she lowered the bow to the taut strings, she let out a deep breath and closed her eyes in an attempt to calm her nerves. With extreme precision, she began to pull the bow across, and the sounds of the instrument began to echo off the surroundings. The rambunctious crowd had fallen silent, each pony listening to the beautiful notes that filled the theatre. As she continued to play, Octavia began to pour new meaning into each and every note, giving each a new sense of meaning to the classical arrangement. Each pull across the cello’s strings filled the audience with a sense of awe and excitement. Never before had they heard such treasure for the ears.
After the piece had finished, she lowered the bow to her side and opened her eyes once again. As she gazed into the crowd, she saw the one thing that made all of the devotion to her music worth while; the smiling faces of the ponies that had listened. Octavia couldn't help but feel giddy as she stood up from the chair. Within seconds the crowd burst into cheering and applause, their combined sound slightly shaking the wooden stage below her hooves. With minimal effort, Octavia threaded her head through the cello's thick black strap and pulled it up so that it sat perfectly resting against her side. One small nod of her head later, Octavia walked off of the stage, a mint green unicorn taking her place as she disappeared behind the thick red curtains.
"Beautiful show, as always," a chocolate brown stallion said as he tipped his hat towards Octavia, with a large smile across his face. "You sure do know how to put on a show that the crowd will remember for years to come."
"Trying to get on my good side, Noteworthy?" Octavia commented with a playful tone.
"And here I thought I was being subtle for once," Noteworthy said as he pulled a rather impressive looking bag full of bits from his saddlebags. The sound of bits clanging together filled the backstage as he hoisted the heavy bag onto the small wooden table in front of him
"Noteworthy..." Octavia said with a deadpanned look in her eyes. "You're about as subtle as an Ursa Minor rampaging through the city.”
"Ah, you love me and you know it," the stallion said with a cheerful tone in his voice. A moment of peaceful silence hung between the two of them until Noteworthy spoke up. "Anyway, onto brass tacks. The theater thanks you for yet another stunning performance and extends their regards. In fact, they have requested that you play for the Princesses' Ball the next coming week." A small red book levitated into sight as Noteworthy began to rifle through the pages of the planner, stopping on the desired date. "It looks like you're free for the time they've asked. Should I schedule the event?"
"Well, we definitely wouldn't want to reject such a prestigious event," Octavia said as she rested the heavy cello on the backstage wall. "Feel free to write me into the schedule wherever you want and tell the princesses that I'll happily accept their offer."
"They'll be glad to hear that," Noteworthy said with a smile, penciling the date into the small planner. "Is there anything else that I could do for you before I head out?"
"If it isn't too much trouble," Octavia said with a hesitant tone while pointing at the cello with a hoof. "Could you take the cello back to the house for me? I'd like to go for a walk through the night streets and it is rather cumbersome to be carrying that around." After Octavia finished every show, she always would take a walk through the peaceful moonlight illuminated streets of whatever town she was playing in. Every performance filled her with an extreme amount of stress before the event, and she found that the walks helped calm her nerves down back to a normal level.
"Putting me straight to the manual labour aren't you?" Noteworthy questioned with an expression of mock hurt across of his face.
"Of course!" Octavia said with a smirk. "Somepony does have to be the cruel dictator in this business relationship, and we both know that you don't have much of an attitude for that."
"Very true," Noteworthy acknowledged as he levitated the cello into the air, a light brown surrounding both his horn and the cello case. "If that is everything that you need, then I shall be on my way. Places to go and ponies to see. You know the drill." With a wave of his hoof Noteworthy made his way out the door, leaving Octavia backstage alone for the time being. After a couple of minutes getting ready Octavia trotted over to the backstage door and pushed it open with a hoof, revealing the cobblestone streets that awaited her.
Octavia walked down the barren night streets, gazing at all the small details of the city as she walked. Luna's moon provided just enough light to see and washed everything in a grey glow that accented every small nook and cranny of the bustling city. As she continued to walk down the street, Octavia began to think of the future and what it held in store for her. Ever since her single “I am Octavia”, her popularity had been soaring higher and faster than she ever thought was possible. With the fame came more and more ponies that adored her music, each one bringing a small ray of happiness to Octavia’s heart as they sat patiently waiting in the audience to hear her play.
However, something still felt like was missing from the picture, something that she couldn’t quite put her hoof on. She had all the money that she could ever want, a nice house right in the middle of the Canterlot suburbs, but there was no doubt that something was missing. Octavia turned her head upwards and gazed into the elegant night sky, as her mind continued to ponder the conundrum. Slowly she began to trace her memories back, and as she delved into her thoughts one thing was clear. The missing feeling had started to take shape the day that she had severed her ties with Vinyl Scratch. The DJ had brought a much needed randomness to her day, which was the one thing that Octavia never thought she would miss about the unicorn. That bubbly attitude of hers always seemed to bring a much needed spring into any day, no matter the situation.
“I wonder where she is now,” Octavia thought to herself as she continued to watch the sky. “It’s been years since I last saw her…” With a deflated sigh, Octavia hung her head back down to earth. She still felt awful about breaking her ties with Vinyl. For weeks after the phone call that separated the two, Octavia had become a recluse slowly shutting others out one by one as she focused solely on her music. Part of the reason was that it provided a true safe haven where she could just shut the world out and focus only on her craft. The other reason being that she knew that Vinyl would have wanted her to continue on, even after their friendship had ended. “Hopefully she is doing well.” Octavia let out small stifled giggle to herself as she remembered what it was like living with unicorn. Going day by day, never knowing what she would see Vinyl do next. From developing a dubstep dishwasher, to inventing a new kind of music because of sheer boredom. One thing was for certain, it had never been a dull moment with her around.
“Knowing her, she probably picked herself up and became an even better musician, racing to the top of the charts in the blink of an eye.”
With those words, a moment of realization had sunk into Octavia’s mind, as she couldn’t recall the last collection that Vinyl had released ever since that day. No matter how much she tried, she always came up dry, not able to recall even seeing Vinyl’s name on any musical productions throughout the years.
“Probably just me being forgetful about the past,” Octavia thought to herself as she continued to trot down the empty street. She continued to walk for a couple minutes, mind aimlessly bouncing from one idea to the next, when it suddenly stopped, a small white unidentifiable ball of something in the alley caught her attention. Octavia stared at the ball with a confused look across her face, one eyebrow slightly askew from the other. No matter how hard she tried to pull her eyes away from it, they always remained fixated on it. With her curiosity momentarily getting the better of her, Octavia took a couple steps into the moonlit alleyway, making sure to approach the odd object with extreme caution.
As Octavia continued to approach the ball of white, she began to notice that it was a sleeping pony huddled tightly in a ball, it’s chest contracting rhythmically with each breath.
“Hello?” Octavia asked the unknown pony, a slight sound of nervousness trickled off of her usually confident voice. Upon hearing the sound, the pony’s tail gave a small twitch and moved into view, the dark blue and cyan pattern easily recognizable to anyone who knew her. “Vinyl?” No response came from the huddled ball of fur. “Is that you?”
Now Octavia was standing only a couple feet from the mare, and there was no doubt in her mind that it was Vinyl. However everything looked wrong from what she remembered. Her fur was matted into an odd mess of knots and tangles, the vibrant colour of her mane and tail also seemed to be much duller than what she remembered. Octavia stood silently at the sight that lay sitting in front of her, as she watched Vinyl tuck her face deeper into her muddy hooves. With an outstretched hoof, she hooked a fore leg underneath Vinyl’s and lifted the limp hoof slowly, revealing the empty syringe on the concrete floor below. In an instant, Octavia's confused demeanor was replaced with one of pure shock.
“Oh, Vinyl…” Octavia said with tears starting to form in her eyes. "How could you have fallen to something this low… You were the one that helped me realized the one thing that I had been searching for years, and this is where you ended up of all places… Laying here in this alley, brushed away like all the trash that lays scattered across the cold ground. You don't deserve something like this... Nopony deserves something like this.”
Mustering as much strength as she could, Octavia hoisted Vinyl’s body overtop of her own, the white unicorn’s limbs dangled down across her sides. Doing her best to balance Vinyl’s sleeping head on her shoulder, Octavia reached forward to grab the black bag that had been setting next to Vinyl and set off in the direction of the nearest hospital.
Author's Note
So I finally got around to publishing the beginning of this story. It has been something that I have wanted to write ever since I started When A Door Closes, and I finally got around to doing it. Sadly Tales of Xillia 2 has been sucking the free amount of small time that I have, so that pushed the release of this story.
As always feel free to comment with what ever constructive criticisms that you please. Hopefully you enjoyed the chapter. The next one will focus on some of the backstory on what happened to Vinyl beforehand.
