Hyper Love Surprise: Minuit Sérénité

A soft, monotone beeping greeted Coco's ears. And she woke right there, atop her medical bed... wrapped in bandages and glazed in medical gels. A hot, prickling sensation stung her body all over. She wished to scream. To kick something. To fall asleep. Anything.

Her eyes went desultory and dotted the room with panic. There was fog outside. It'd stained the window with humidity and streaks of flash rainfall. Next to her bed was a vase of flowers. They were all unreasonably healthy, yet the vase was glass and full with water.

Someone... had to refill those flowers for her. Someone who cared. Just before closing her eyes, she caught a shape by the exit. A gentle, canary yellow coat met her gaze. Her mother had dropped her bags and let the groceries shatter. The tears in her eyes, suspended curiously just about her lashes, spilled down in rivers.

"Coco..." She sobbed.

"Coco, oh-! you're- you're finally awake...!"

She could barely cry with mother's embrace. But she did. Sometimes, loss was inevitable. Sometimes, feelings were inevitable. A surge of bitterness struck her core. And though she missed the kiss of coat on coat, her hugs were glass. Her tears were poison. So she struggled to shove her away, grunting and straining with fight.

"C-coco, it's okay- I-it's me, mother-!"

"Exactly... it's you..."

She stumbled backwards and fell against the guest chairs. Mother had her rump against the wall. Coco Pommel bore flames in her eyes. The memory of her, of mother, combusted her chest. It filled with acid and trembled her hooves with wordless tension. She grit her teeth and shut her eyes.

"Why is it you. Why the fuck are you here...?!"

Somewhere deep inside, her mother's heart stopped. She scrunched her eyelids and bit her lip to stabilize her sniffling. The image of her child, all grown up, seething with red, layered in bandage after bandage, was all she needed to understand them. She understood.

"Coco... I-I know I'm not- n-not wh-who you want to see-"

Coco opened her mouth to interject. But, seeing her, actually seeing that look in her eyes, she could barely stomach her own hate. Swollen and red, the whites of her eyes were bleeding. Coco Pommel could kill her. She could spring out of bed and tear her throat out, she reasoned. Coco was capable... Coco wasn't some helpless little flower. No, not anymore.

"So what. So what you're here now, mom. You were never here when dad took me to the basement and fucked me over the steps. You weren't here when he locked me away-! Why are you here now, then!? Why are you even here?!"

Her mother shambled forward, barely capable. She grew limp with every step. Face-to-face with the truth, she could only stare. Mother's mascara snaked down and painted her cheeks, just like they always had. In the hooves of someone close, her cheeks were taken forward for examination. Coco's mother had studied her supple curves and sharp snout, to relive the parenthood she never had. That was when she broke down and shut her eyes. A god to her child, she'd been nothing but her nightmare. Her speech started steady. And as time passed, it broke to sobbing.

"That's why... B-b-be-cause I should've been h-here. I should've been here for you. I'm sorry- I-I'm so fucking ho-horrible, Coco but I-I don't c-care ab-bo-bout the past...! I'm here now! I'm sorry...!"

Her voice begane to wane. Coco's chest compressed tighter.

"Coco... Oh Luna, Coco I- I've been sitting here everyday... everyday, praying to the sisters. just to have you back. Just to see your eyes open. I-I lost your sister already- I can't- I can't lose you, too!"

'I-I lost your sister already-'

'lost your sister'

Her mind came crashing down as her synapses ran cold. For a brief moment in time, she lost herself. Repressed memories were swarming her every sense. Her mind was merciful before. It'd lock her childhood away just so she could live with herself.

An angry Glace swatted her backward with a baseball bat, telling her to go, because she wanted nothing to do with her. To creep over low to the ground, she slipped low and begged Glace to help her. To accept the fact that she, in some sick way, harboured feelings for her.

'No! What the fuck is wrong with you! We're sisters! And I don't even like you that way! I never did-!'

Sister raised her bat and smashed the frame of their bunkbed. The impact had shattered the ladder portion, stranding the top bunk exclusively for itself. Glace à la Vanille had started yelling. She'd started barking at her like the savage dog called Father. All her teeth grew jagged. Sister looked like a monster.

"Why...?! Why don't you love me...! I need you! You were the only one I-! Ever trusted!"

Barely able to walk, her anxiety crippled her. Coco was buckling and shivering in a storm of malice and unrequited hurt. And though she'd turned her back on Glace, her sister had finally realized what was wrong. Coco had never seen her face before, but she knew, thinking back, her eyes were full of tears. The emotionless tone to her reply wasn't a lack of emotion. Glace had withdrawn herself from the situation because she couldn't face the atrocities she let happen.

Coco had curled within herself. And then, in violent tension, she coiled her hindlegs.

"Je reviens vite... J'taime C-Coco." Glace had said, barely above a whisper.

And that's when, in a fit of rage, she bucked what she thought would be the door. Instead, it was Glace's muzzle. In her excessive and reckless anger, she'd pushed her cartilage up her nasal cavity and punctured her brain. The first thing she did was fall down and hold her.

"Glace... Glace I-I didn't-! I didn't know-!"

A wash of tears blinded her. All she could feel was hatred wrapping her heart. All she ever felt till then... was hatred. Coco Pommel could never hold her ears for long. And though she'd practiced choking her sobs back, though she'd muffled her hooves to avoid Father time and time again, she was the one abusing. She was the villain of her piece. The last thing Glace ever said, reaching up and stroking her cheeks for the first and last time she ever would, were the words:

"I love you... I want to be somewhere else. S-so we c-could start all over again..."

"Glace- Glace- please don't- don't die- don't-! die-!"

"Coco... Please. Stop- s-stop crying."

"I-I killed you- I k-killed you- wh-why should I stop hating myself...?!"

Coco leapt out of her bed and ran. She ripped her I.V out and galloped away with tearing flesh and charred, ripping fur. The walls of the hospital were ruined with water damage and time. There were nurses and doctors running amok trying to catch her, to at least save one patient that needed it. But all she did was rush through them. Nopony else could control her anymore. Coco was no one's toy.

And even though Coco was barely out the hospital... her legs gave way and she collapsed outside on dead, withered soil. A mangled entrance sign caught her eye, revealing where exactly she'd been resting. The fog was thick. And the sign, brightened not by a street lamp, but candles and flowers, said 'welcome to Ponyville.'

Coco Pommel curled within herself and tried not to feel.

The last words she'd remember were Glace's goodbye.

"Because I love you."