A Certain Shade of Darknessby Strawberry PegasusChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 1One lonely balloon Drifting alone in the world. Does it cry for those that floated before it? If it does, its lament is unheard. I set out on my daily walk around Ponyville. Every day, I knock on my friend's doors and see if they want to do something with me. They were all busy yesterday. They were also busy the day before that. In fact, all my friends have been busy every day this week. I don't know why I even bother to check anymore. Nopony ever has time for me. I step inside the Carousel Boutique anyway. "Sorry, darling. I just don't have the time. I really bit off more than I can chew this time." "Sorry, Pinkie. This is really important. You understand, right?" "Sorry, Pinkie. I need to train. You can't fly as fast as me without proper exercise, you know!" "Oh, I'd love to, but I can't leave Sparky alone until he's trained. Sorry." "Sorry, sugarcube. These apples won't harvest themselves." Well, it's official. I'm spending the day alone. Again. There's nothing left to do but go to work. Usually, I only have to work a few hours each day. With nothing else to do, I've been working extra hard. I walk through the back door of Sugarcube Corner, into the kitchen. As usual, Mrs. Cake is standing there, working. Right now, she's mixing a chocolate cake. "Pinkie! I've never seen a pony so dedicated to their work. I'm glad you're here. There's an order for a batch of vanilla cupcakes. You know what to do!" I sigh softly as I grab a mixing bowl. I freeze as I pass the silverware drawer. Somepony has left it open. I gently nudge it closed, looking away from the neatly arranged knives. When I look at them, I get this really weird screaming in my head. I can't tell what it's saying, it's just... loud. It makes me feel like there's an itch in my head, and I want to tear apart my skull and scratch it. But when I close the drawer, most of the screaming goes away, and I can concentrate on my vanilla cupcakes. Mrs. Cake thinks I'm a dedicated worker, but I know better. I used to really like work, but now I can't stand it. The kitchen has so many things in it that make the screaming louder. I'm always glad when it's nighttime, because I can go to bed. In my sleep, I get a few hours of happy silence. At 6 pm, Mrs. Cake tells me I can go upstairs and eat dinner. My work is done for today. Grateful to escape the kitchen, I dash up to my room. Before long, I've prepared a green salad and am sitting down to eat. I'm not really all that hungry, but eating dinner makes me feel more normal. As I'm about to start eating, I glance over at my bed and have an idea. I drag an extra chair to my dinner table and set my pillow in the chair. Next, I set an extra plate in front of the pillow and put half my salad on the plate. I step back to admire my work. I'm not alone anymore. I have a guest. I sit down in my chair and start eating. At the same time, I talk to make my guest feel welcome. "Welcome to my home, Fluffy. I'm so happy to have you here. I hope you're comfortable." There's no answer. "Just let me know if you need anything." Still no answer. "Would you like a glass of water, Fluffy?" Fluffy says nothing. I'm starting to get angry now. Why won't he talk to me? "Why aren't you answering me, Fluffy? Do you hate me? Do you hate me like all my other friends do?" Fluffy doesn't respond to my accusations. "Do you have something else to do? Are you a big dumb loser who thinks everything is more important than having fun with friends?" My new friend's refusal to speak makes me furious. Words explode out of my mouth. "Do you have tricks to practice? Dresses to sew? Do you need to pick apples or train animals? Is there some stupid paperwork you have to fill out? I bet you have a million things to do, Fluffy. You'd better leave right now! Whatever you have to do, I bet it's ten thousand times more important than spending time with ME!" My rage consumes me. Tears stream down my twisted, frowning face as I reach for a knife. In an instant, I knock over the extra chair. I'm on top of Fluffy with my knife. Now I'm stabbing. Stabbing and stabbing and stabbing at the soft white body of a victim who refuses to scream. "Do you love me now, Fluffy? Do you care about me now? Do you think I'm worth talking to?" Each motion of my knife, each explosion of stuffing, tastes like a chocolate cupcake to my twisted brain. Finally, Fluffy is paying the price for not talking to me. Anypony who doesn't want to talk to me shouldn't get to talk at all. Fluffy needs to be punished. Sometimes my knife goes right through Fluffy and imbeds itself in the floor. It's loud enough that somepony on the first floor might hear me. I don't care. All that matters to me is that Fluffy has to die. Once my anger fades, it finally dawns on me that I'm stabbing a pillow. Fluffy could never talk. My questions went unanswered not because Fluffy hated me, but because I was talking to an inanimate object. Pillows can't talk. It was all in my head. I gently set down the knife, then collapse sobbing into the shredded pile of stuffing that used to be my pillow. Last time I checked, I was happy. How did my life collapse like this? How did I get to the point where I would do something like this? How did I become so empty? Chapter 2Sadness can open doors That nopony dares look inside And leave a creature within you Clawing at your mind. I don't know how long I lie there, face down, crying. Maybe five minutes, maybe ten. I don't really care. When I'm done crying, I look up. My eyes fall on the knife I left laying beside me. The screaming starts up again. It's louder than ever. I know I can't ignore it this time. Even so, I try. I pick up what's left of my pillow, set it on the bed, and hope for the sweet silence of sleep. It doesn't come. No matter how hard I try, my eyes stay open, staring at that knife on the floor. Whenever I close my eyes, bright flashes of red and grey force me to open them again. I glance at the clock on my wall. With each second that ticks by, I can hear the screaming getting louder. I won't be able to fight it for much longer. The itching, the tingling in my hooves, that deafening noise that fills my skull. Every passing second makes it harder to bear. Finally, when the clock strikes nine, I can't take it anymore. I crawl out of bed, towards the knife. The room is silent, but the inside of my head is unbearably loud. I hold the silver table knife tightly in my hoof. I'm not in control anymore. The darkness surrounds me, embraces me, rocks me like a little filly as I prepare to do what the screaming tells me to do. Then I have a thought. Why should I hurt myself? It's not me who I'm angry at. It's those jerks who call themselves my friends. It's them I want to hurt. They're the ones who have to pay. They're the ones who always come up with excuses not to spend time with me. When I look back at what they all said to me, I realize something. They all said 'sorry.' Why would they apologize? What to they have to be sorry about? They hate me. That's what they're apologizing for. Every single one of them hates me. They thought I was too stupid to realize that. They were wrong. I see right through their little plan. And I'm going to make them pay. The screaming is silenced now. I smile and set the knife on my dresser. The next time they try to ignore me, I'll be ready. I'm suddenly awoken by a knock on my window. Opening my eyes, I see Rainbow Dash hovering outside. "What do you want?" I demand. "We're all getting together at the smoothie shop. Wanna come? It was Twilight's idea. It's going to be awesome." I try my hardest to maintain my cheerful façade. "Of course I want to come! Why wouldn't I want to spend time with my friends?" Rainbow Dash seems relieved that I didn't try to kill her. "Okay, see you there!" As soon as she leaves, I pick up the knife. I'm so excited I can hardly breathe. This is going to be fun. Outside the door to the smoothie shop, I pause to calm myself. Nopony noticed the knife I was carrying on the way here. Why would they? Nopony cares about the baker's apprentice. But soon they will. Soon they'll care about me. They'll realize how mean it was to ignore me. They'll find out how it feels to be tossed aside like an old rag doll. I will have my revenge, and everypony will learn to respect Pinkimena Dianne Pie. Taking one more breath of fresh air, I stroll into the smoothie shop. I wonder for a moment if anypony can see the fire blazing in my brain. My 'friends' are seated at the table in the corner, in a nearly perfect circle. One chair sits vacant. Their smiling faces frame it as they turn to face me. Worry shimmers in their eyes. I can tell they see the knife in my mouth. Rarity is the first to speak. "I hope you don't mind my asking, but whatever happened to your mane?" One sentence, and all my rage is unleashed. Sometime during the run, I must have grabbed the knife out of my mouth. I know this because right now it's my hoof that's propelling the silver table knife deep into Rarity's ribs. Blood comes bubbling out of the wound, staining her pristine white fur pink. She stares up at me in shock and tries to say something. I can't tell what she's saying to me. All I notice is the blood trickling out of her mouth. The volume of the screams in the restaurant rises as more and more ponies realize what's happening. An orange pony tackles me, knocking the knife out of my hand. I bite her in the leg. Applejack recoils just enough for me to grab my knife and wedge it into her chest. She's taken care of. Now all I need to do is finish Rarity. I jam the knife into her left hind leg and twist. A fountain of red gushes out, pulsing in time with her faint heartbeat. I take a moment to stare at it, mesmerized by the bubbling fountain of blood. I look around. I'm the reason for the puddles of blood on the floor and the crowds of ponies hiding their faces in the corners. I'm the one behind Applejack lying on the floor, no longer a pony but an inanimate object. The overturned tables and chairs are my fault. A smile creeps across my face. They'll pay attention to me now. I'm still reflecting on all of this when a beam of alicorn magic hits me squarely in the chest. The last thing I see before the world fades to black is a pair of tear-filled violet eyes staring at me mournfully. Chapter 3It's funny how a certain shade of darkness, Can leave you a hollow shell addicted to death. A special kind of darkness that never lets you go, Until your final dying breath. The trial is nothing special. Fluttershy cries through the whole thing. Rainbow Dash starts screaming at me halfway through her testimony and has to be dragged away by a guard. Twilight and her lawyer more or less hand me my flank on a silver platter, of course. The verdict is guilty. Not that I ever expected otherwise. The whole point of the murders was to be noticed. If I wanted to be seen as innocent, I wouldn't have stabbed two ponies to death in the middle of a crowded smoothie shop. I probably would have just plead guilty to begin with, but I wanted to see how everpony would react. As I'm being led out of the courtroom, reporters swarm around me, all of them asking the same stupid questions. I don't answer. By now, they all know why I did it. They also know I'm guilty. They just want me admitting it on camera. I just smile and wave. Looking into the crowd, I spot my parents. They look shocked. I don't care. They never really loved me anyway. Next to them are my sisters. They don't matter. My family never understood me. Suddenly, my eyes lock on something interesting. The one pony in the crowd who I give a flying feather about. An orange stallion. In our letters, we always talked about finding a place to meet. We were going to set aside a day just for the two of us. We'd share stories of our adventures and maybe even throw a party. That's definitely never going to happen now. For one thing, I'm spending the rest of my life in a maximum-security underground prison. Secondly, Cheese looks completely and utterly broken. I've never seen anypony sad like this before. I'm not talking about depression, like I felt a few days ago. He's past even that. I'm talking about despair. Like he jumped into a swimming pool full of sadness and is currently drowning as piranhas eat him alive. The colors in his coat and mane are faded. He's holding his head so low, he could pass for the headless horse. As I'm being loaded into the prison cart, he looks up. His red, puffy eyes meet mine and he says something. I know he's talking to me, but I can't make out the words. I frantically search my mind for something, anything that can make this okay. tears stream down my face as I whisper the only thing I can think of. I'm sorry. The second those words leave my mouth, the iron door closes. Darkness fills the cart and those soul-penetrating green eyes disappear from my view forever. The stone cell is cold and damp. A rat scurries across the floor. It looks like he's going to be my only company for the rest of my life. I've been thinking about what I said earlier. I've come to the conclusion that I meant it. My apology was heartfelt. I really do feel horrible about what I did. I wish I'd realized that earlier. I was blinded by my rage. I should have gotten help. I should have talked to somepony. I should have... In a flash of realization, it dawns on me that if I hadn't killed Applejack and Rarity, I would have killed myself. No matter what I did, lives would have been lost. Ever since I first picked up that knife, it was a choice between two paths of evil. The real question I have to ask myself is this: Is my life worth more than the lives of two of my friends? The answer is obvious. I made the wrong choice. I shouldn't have resisted the screaming. I should have killed myself when I had the chance. The screaming starts up again. This time, I can hear what it's saying. It's not too late. After about five minutes of searching, I find some loose bricks in the wall. I can easily use them as footholds. When I reach the top, I grip the ceiling, taking care not to fall at the wrong angle. I carefully arch my back and tilt my head back towards the ground. I'm just barely high enough for this to work, as long as I let go with my front legs first. I take a few seconds to savor the last of my existence. I close my eyes count to ten, and smile at the thought of seeing my friends again. I'm ready now. I let go.
Chapter 1One lonely balloon Drifting alone in the world. Does it cry for those that floated before it? If it does, its lament is unheard. I set out on my daily walk around Ponyville. Every day, I knock on my friend's doors and see if they want to do something with me. They were all busy yesterday. They were also busy the day before that. In fact, all my friends have been busy every day this week. I don't know why I even bother to check anymore. Nopony ever has time for me. I step inside the Carousel Boutique anyway. "Sorry, darling. I just don't have the time. I really bit off more than I can chew this time." "Sorry, Pinkie. This is really important. You understand, right?" "Sorry, Pinkie. I need to train. You can't fly as fast as me without proper exercise, you know!" "Oh, I'd love to, but I can't leave Sparky alone until he's trained. Sorry." "Sorry, sugarcube. These apples won't harvest themselves." Well, it's official. I'm spending the day alone. Again. There's nothing left to do but go to work. Usually, I only have to work a few hours each day. With nothing else to do, I've been working extra hard. I walk through the back door of Sugarcube Corner, into the kitchen. As usual, Mrs. Cake is standing there, working. Right now, she's mixing a chocolate cake. "Pinkie! I've never seen a pony so dedicated to their work. I'm glad you're here. There's an order for a batch of vanilla cupcakes. You know what to do!" I sigh softly as I grab a mixing bowl. I freeze as I pass the silverware drawer. Somepony has left it open. I gently nudge it closed, looking away from the neatly arranged knives. When I look at them, I get this really weird screaming in my head. I can't tell what it's saying, it's just... loud. It makes me feel like there's an itch in my head, and I want to tear apart my skull and scratch it. But when I close the drawer, most of the screaming goes away, and I can concentrate on my vanilla cupcakes. Mrs. Cake thinks I'm a dedicated worker, but I know better. I used to really like work, but now I can't stand it. The kitchen has so many things in it that make the screaming louder. I'm always glad when it's nighttime, because I can go to bed. In my sleep, I get a few hours of happy silence. At 6 pm, Mrs. Cake tells me I can go upstairs and eat dinner. My work is done for today. Grateful to escape the kitchen, I dash up to my room. Before long, I've prepared a green salad and am sitting down to eat. I'm not really all that hungry, but eating dinner makes me feel more normal. As I'm about to start eating, I glance over at my bed and have an idea. I drag an extra chair to my dinner table and set my pillow in the chair. Next, I set an extra plate in front of the pillow and put half my salad on the plate. I step back to admire my work. I'm not alone anymore. I have a guest. I sit down in my chair and start eating. At the same time, I talk to make my guest feel welcome. "Welcome to my home, Fluffy. I'm so happy to have you here. I hope you're comfortable." There's no answer. "Just let me know if you need anything." Still no answer. "Would you like a glass of water, Fluffy?" Fluffy says nothing. I'm starting to get angry now. Why won't he talk to me? "Why aren't you answering me, Fluffy? Do you hate me? Do you hate me like all my other friends do?" Fluffy doesn't respond to my accusations. "Do you have something else to do? Are you a big dumb loser who thinks everything is more important than having fun with friends?" My new friend's refusal to speak makes me furious. Words explode out of my mouth. "Do you have tricks to practice? Dresses to sew? Do you need to pick apples or train animals? Is there some stupid paperwork you have to fill out? I bet you have a million things to do, Fluffy. You'd better leave right now! Whatever you have to do, I bet it's ten thousand times more important than spending time with ME!" My rage consumes me. Tears stream down my twisted, frowning face as I reach for a knife. In an instant, I knock over the extra chair. I'm on top of Fluffy with my knife. Now I'm stabbing. Stabbing and stabbing and stabbing at the soft white body of a victim who refuses to scream. "Do you love me now, Fluffy? Do you care about me now? Do you think I'm worth talking to?" Each motion of my knife, each explosion of stuffing, tastes like a chocolate cupcake to my twisted brain. Finally, Fluffy is paying the price for not talking to me. Anypony who doesn't want to talk to me shouldn't get to talk at all. Fluffy needs to be punished. Sometimes my knife goes right through Fluffy and imbeds itself in the floor. It's loud enough that somepony on the first floor might hear me. I don't care. All that matters to me is that Fluffy has to die. Once my anger fades, it finally dawns on me that I'm stabbing a pillow. Fluffy could never talk. My questions went unanswered not because Fluffy hated me, but because I was talking to an inanimate object. Pillows can't talk. It was all in my head. I gently set down the knife, then collapse sobbing into the shredded pile of stuffing that used to be my pillow. Last time I checked, I was happy. How did my life collapse like this? How did I get to the point where I would do something like this? How did I become so empty?
Chapter 2Sadness can open doors That nopony dares look inside And leave a creature within you Clawing at your mind. I don't know how long I lie there, face down, crying. Maybe five minutes, maybe ten. I don't really care. When I'm done crying, I look up. My eyes fall on the knife I left laying beside me. The screaming starts up again. It's louder than ever. I know I can't ignore it this time. Even so, I try. I pick up what's left of my pillow, set it on the bed, and hope for the sweet silence of sleep. It doesn't come. No matter how hard I try, my eyes stay open, staring at that knife on the floor. Whenever I close my eyes, bright flashes of red and grey force me to open them again. I glance at the clock on my wall. With each second that ticks by, I can hear the screaming getting louder. I won't be able to fight it for much longer. The itching, the tingling in my hooves, that deafening noise that fills my skull. Every passing second makes it harder to bear. Finally, when the clock strikes nine, I can't take it anymore. I crawl out of bed, towards the knife. The room is silent, but the inside of my head is unbearably loud. I hold the silver table knife tightly in my hoof. I'm not in control anymore. The darkness surrounds me, embraces me, rocks me like a little filly as I prepare to do what the screaming tells me to do. Then I have a thought. Why should I hurt myself? It's not me who I'm angry at. It's those jerks who call themselves my friends. It's them I want to hurt. They're the ones who have to pay. They're the ones who always come up with excuses not to spend time with me. When I look back at what they all said to me, I realize something. They all said 'sorry.' Why would they apologize? What to they have to be sorry about? They hate me. That's what they're apologizing for. Every single one of them hates me. They thought I was too stupid to realize that. They were wrong. I see right through their little plan. And I'm going to make them pay. The screaming is silenced now. I smile and set the knife on my dresser. The next time they try to ignore me, I'll be ready. I'm suddenly awoken by a knock on my window. Opening my eyes, I see Rainbow Dash hovering outside. "What do you want?" I demand. "We're all getting together at the smoothie shop. Wanna come? It was Twilight's idea. It's going to be awesome." I try my hardest to maintain my cheerful façade. "Of course I want to come! Why wouldn't I want to spend time with my friends?" Rainbow Dash seems relieved that I didn't try to kill her. "Okay, see you there!" As soon as she leaves, I pick up the knife. I'm so excited I can hardly breathe. This is going to be fun. Outside the door to the smoothie shop, I pause to calm myself. Nopony noticed the knife I was carrying on the way here. Why would they? Nopony cares about the baker's apprentice. But soon they will. Soon they'll care about me. They'll realize how mean it was to ignore me. They'll find out how it feels to be tossed aside like an old rag doll. I will have my revenge, and everypony will learn to respect Pinkimena Dianne Pie. Taking one more breath of fresh air, I stroll into the smoothie shop. I wonder for a moment if anypony can see the fire blazing in my brain. My 'friends' are seated at the table in the corner, in a nearly perfect circle. One chair sits vacant. Their smiling faces frame it as they turn to face me. Worry shimmers in their eyes. I can tell they see the knife in my mouth. Rarity is the first to speak. "I hope you don't mind my asking, but whatever happened to your mane?" One sentence, and all my rage is unleashed. Sometime during the run, I must have grabbed the knife out of my mouth. I know this because right now it's my hoof that's propelling the silver table knife deep into Rarity's ribs. Blood comes bubbling out of the wound, staining her pristine white fur pink. She stares up at me in shock and tries to say something. I can't tell what she's saying to me. All I notice is the blood trickling out of her mouth. The volume of the screams in the restaurant rises as more and more ponies realize what's happening. An orange pony tackles me, knocking the knife out of my hand. I bite her in the leg. Applejack recoils just enough for me to grab my knife and wedge it into her chest. She's taken care of. Now all I need to do is finish Rarity. I jam the knife into her left hind leg and twist. A fountain of red gushes out, pulsing in time with her faint heartbeat. I take a moment to stare at it, mesmerized by the bubbling fountain of blood. I look around. I'm the reason for the puddles of blood on the floor and the crowds of ponies hiding their faces in the corners. I'm the one behind Applejack lying on the floor, no longer a pony but an inanimate object. The overturned tables and chairs are my fault. A smile creeps across my face. They'll pay attention to me now. I'm still reflecting on all of this when a beam of alicorn magic hits me squarely in the chest. The last thing I see before the world fades to black is a pair of tear-filled violet eyes staring at me mournfully.
Chapter 3It's funny how a certain shade of darkness, Can leave you a hollow shell addicted to death. A special kind of darkness that never lets you go, Until your final dying breath. The trial is nothing special. Fluttershy cries through the whole thing. Rainbow Dash starts screaming at me halfway through her testimony and has to be dragged away by a guard. Twilight and her lawyer more or less hand me my flank on a silver platter, of course. The verdict is guilty. Not that I ever expected otherwise. The whole point of the murders was to be noticed. If I wanted to be seen as innocent, I wouldn't have stabbed two ponies to death in the middle of a crowded smoothie shop. I probably would have just plead guilty to begin with, but I wanted to see how everpony would react. As I'm being led out of the courtroom, reporters swarm around me, all of them asking the same stupid questions. I don't answer. By now, they all know why I did it. They also know I'm guilty. They just want me admitting it on camera. I just smile and wave. Looking into the crowd, I spot my parents. They look shocked. I don't care. They never really loved me anyway. Next to them are my sisters. They don't matter. My family never understood me. Suddenly, my eyes lock on something interesting. The one pony in the crowd who I give a flying feather about. An orange stallion. In our letters, we always talked about finding a place to meet. We were going to set aside a day just for the two of us. We'd share stories of our adventures and maybe even throw a party. That's definitely never going to happen now. For one thing, I'm spending the rest of my life in a maximum-security underground prison. Secondly, Cheese looks completely and utterly broken. I've never seen anypony sad like this before. I'm not talking about depression, like I felt a few days ago. He's past even that. I'm talking about despair. Like he jumped into a swimming pool full of sadness and is currently drowning as piranhas eat him alive. The colors in his coat and mane are faded. He's holding his head so low, he could pass for the headless horse. As I'm being loaded into the prison cart, he looks up. His red, puffy eyes meet mine and he says something. I know he's talking to me, but I can't make out the words. I frantically search my mind for something, anything that can make this okay. tears stream down my face as I whisper the only thing I can think of. I'm sorry. The second those words leave my mouth, the iron door closes. Darkness fills the cart and those soul-penetrating green eyes disappear from my view forever. The stone cell is cold and damp. A rat scurries across the floor. It looks like he's going to be my only company for the rest of my life. I've been thinking about what I said earlier. I've come to the conclusion that I meant it. My apology was heartfelt. I really do feel horrible about what I did. I wish I'd realized that earlier. I was blinded by my rage. I should have gotten help. I should have talked to somepony. I should have... In a flash of realization, it dawns on me that if I hadn't killed Applejack and Rarity, I would have killed myself. No matter what I did, lives would have been lost. Ever since I first picked up that knife, it was a choice between two paths of evil. The real question I have to ask myself is this: Is my life worth more than the lives of two of my friends? The answer is obvious. I made the wrong choice. I shouldn't have resisted the screaming. I should have killed myself when I had the chance. The screaming starts up again. This time, I can hear what it's saying. It's not too late. After about five minutes of searching, I find some loose bricks in the wall. I can easily use them as footholds. When I reach the top, I grip the ceiling, taking care not to fall at the wrong angle. I carefully arch my back and tilt my head back towards the ground. I'm just barely high enough for this to work, as long as I let go with my front legs first. I take a few seconds to savor the last of my existence. I close my eyes count to ten, and smile at the thought of seeing my friends again. I'm ready now. I let go.
