Out of the Light

Out of the Light

by glorg

Chapter Six

Midnight Cowgirl

The following is a entry on the blog “frankthebunny”, written and managed by Dom.

Holy shit.

Hoooooooly shit.

No way.

No way, no way, no way.

Okay, none of you, my nonexistent audience, will ever believe this, but I have SIX.  HOT.  CHICKS.  LIVING IN MY APARTMENT.

Granted they think that they’re ponies or some shit, but OH MY GOD.  And that’s the thing!  They’re all gorgeous!  Every single one!

How the hell did I get that lucky?

...Wait.  That’s right.  I ran one over.

I’m such a dumbass.

Of course, she kinda wants to kill me right now, but the other five are nice enough.  And maybe she doesn’t hate me so much, after what happened at the party and all.

Oh yeah.  The party at Ant’s.

Now there’s a story.

But first, some background.  Anthony “Ant” Marino has been one of my friends since freshman year of high school.  He started off a punk-rocker anarchist, and I’m pretty sure he got into cocaine junior or senior year.  He always had his eyebrows shaved off and dreamed of living on the road, going from town to town, with his dream band: Skumthumb, a post-punk cover band for David Bowie.  Ant was always a bit off, but he was fun to hang out with.

During college, I found out that he’d gone to rehab and started dating his therapist, this girl named Rachel.  Guess he wanted to renew himself or something, because he suddenly started calling himself by his full name, dropped the punker fashion for hippie threads, became Buddhist, and started a vegan, eco-friendly, pot-smoking, animal rights activist lifestyle with his new chick.  Happy little hippies together, I guess.

I still call him Ant, even though he prefers Anthony these days, but we stayed in touch and he always invites me over to his parties.  His parties kick ass.  Always have, probably always will.  I swear he gets the entire city to show up, and it’s a good thing his house is gigantic or else there wouldn’t be room for jackshit.  There’s always so many different types of people, too.

So it was there that I took two of the chicks I’m living with, for their first Philly party ever.

Did I mention they might be insane?  Or just really drugged-up.  I can’t really tell.  But Christ, they’re gorgeous.  Every single one!  The two I brought with me were named Ramona and Pam.

At least, that’s what I call them.  I think they have real names, but they kept telling me they were called this weird shit, like “Applejack” and “Twilight Sparkle” or whatever.

Not my style, personally.

We rolled into the driveway just about in time, I think; as soon as I parked the Dommobile next to Ant’s Ford Fusion Hybrid (like I said, eco-friendly hippie), an avalanche of cars stampeded in behind me, touting lots of dirty-looking guys wearing wifebeaters and sunglasses with over-tanned and bleached beach-girls hanging on their arms.  Guess one of Ant’s better qualities is that he isn’t really one to discriminate against other people, but sometimes I wish he wasn’t friends with so many douchebags.

What can you do, though.

Pam and Ramona stood by the van, gawking at the sudden influx of people.  I had almost forgot that their whole shtick was that they weren’t used to “humans”.

“C’mon you two, we’re heading in,” I called to them over the growing noise.

A thin layer of smoke was already laced about the ceiling.  Ant always had the foresight to turn off his fire alarms before parties, at least.  The rank of weed was permeating and obnoxious, but I was used to it after so many years.  Again, not my style.  Ant lived for the stuff, though.

The chorus of coughs behind me caught my attention.  Ramona and Pam were practically doubled over.

“>cough< Gah!  What the >coughcough< BUCK is that stuff, Tod?” Ramona’s teeth were bared, like a tiger’s growl.

Kind of sexy.

“...You mean the pot?” I offered.  Through the haze, I could see the silhouettes of a dumpy man and a skeletal woman, lounging in bean bags and passing a glowing red light between them.  Ant and Zsa Zsa.  “You’ll be okay Ramona, I swear.”  The silhouettes raised their arms in greeting.  I mirrored them and said “What’s up, guys.”

Pam jumped onto the coffee table, wiry and erect.  “Pot?! >cough< That means that you guys have a >cough< kitchen?!  CAN WE MAKE MUFFINS??  CAN WE >coughcough< PLEASE???  And oh my gosh, I mean how could I not have realized it before, you silly-willies must’ve >cough< been trying to make a soup and you put it on for too long because you started staring at the wall and talking about tangerines >cough< and then you decided you wanted a party because you realized you hadn’t seen anypony else for the longest time so you called up all your friends and said >cough<, ‘We haven’t seen any of you *forever*, you should come over!’, and now they all are, >cough< and you didn’t even REALIZE that your alien soup had caught on fire, so it filled up your entire house with smoke, but even though you put it out, you’re all just sitting around in it because you don’t know what to do! >coughcough< Don’t worry, Pinkie Pie knows what to do!  MAKE MUFFINS! >cough<”

Man, my stomach dropped.  She came off too wacky.  I swore even Ant would be turned off by the insanity.

Guess it was my surprise that made me jump when he started to laugh, cackling like a choking demon.

“Dude!  Where the fuck did you find this chica?” he laughed, passing off the joint to Zsa Zsa and pulling me into a tight, nauseating embrace.

“Er, off the streets of New Jersey, man.  Her and her friend.  She’s Pam, and that’s Ramona.  They’re cool, I swear.”

“I dig it, I dig it.  Name’s Anthony, ma’am,” he grinned, holding out his grubby hand for her to shake.  Perplexed, she put one of her hands over his and the other underneath, before squashing it together.

“Sandwich!” she giggled.  “I’m supposed to say my name’s Pam Pearl but I’m really Pinkie Pie, just so you know.  >cough< Can we go make muffins now?”

Ant chuckled and pointed to the left.  “Kitchen’s right there.  Call if you need anything, yeah?”

All that was left behind to even suggest a person had been standing there before was a curly strand of pink hair, which promptly floated through the haze and landed on my shoulder.  I didn’t bother removing it.

A roar of voices shook the room violently as the door swung open, and suddenly a certain rainbow-haired lady was clinging to my arm.

“Oh CELESTIA, what is it with you aliens and coming after me?!  Jeez, give a pegasus a moment to breathe, would ya?”  Pretty sure she didn’t realize who she was cozying up with; I could see the realization in her eyes as they traveled up my arm and ended (disgusted) at my face.

I would’ve complained if I hadn’t, you know, run her over with a goddamn car.  There’s some entitlement on her part.

She definitely would have broken off immediately and regained her posture somewhere else.  I know she would’ve, in fact, but the wave of people had finally caught up to us, and what had been uncomfortable with smoke was unbearable with claustrophobia.  Grabbing Ramona’s hand with force, I pushed through the crowd with determination.  This had happened to me thousands of times: all you have to do (if you, my nonexistent audience, ever end up at an Ant Party) is head for the stairs.  None of the party-zombie horde ever seem to think of heading up a level until much later in the party, and even by then, about half of them will be outside, traipsing about in various degrees of inebriation.

Just saying, drunkgazing is a great pastime.  Some people really do get shitfaced.

But that’s where I was going, elbowing and kicking my way through scores of bodies, touting spunky Ramona like a trophy.  Felt pretty cool, not gonna lie.  Wanna know how I’ve never gotten my ass beaten, too?  Just keep moving.  Act like it wasn’t you.  At Ant’s house, at least, it gets so congested, no one can ever really chase you for too long.  Things were going according to plan.  I figured I would drop Ramona off upstairs and go back to pick up Pam, make sure she didn’t get squished in the kitchen.  Simple stuff.

I think someone got tripped, or maybe they just tripped over their own two feet trying to get somewhere, because before I knew it, a two-hundred pound gorilla was pressing on my back.  The wind knocked out of me immediately, and I lost Ramona’s grip just trying to keep from being entirely crushed.  For the first time ever, I saw the crowd part like the goddamn Red Sea as I came hurtling through.  Somewhere along the way, the dipshit figured out how to fall off of me, but my momentum was too strong.  I was heading for a doorway, at least; I would’ve been shit out of luck if a wall was waiting for me.

Through the doorway, crash landing on the carpet.  The linoleum tiles reflected the sparse, ambient light.  Air freshener, toiletries, towels.  I knew what this was.

It was a goddamn bathroom.

Before I could react, before I could move, before I could even think, the door slammed shut.

I knew this bathroom, specifically, because it was screwed-up.  It always had been.  It locked from the outside.  Which meant that someone inside would be locked in, if someone else decided to play a practical joke.  Grimly, I jostled the doorknob.

Wouldn’t budge.

I was fucked.

About seven, eight hours went by.  I tried yelling and pounding the door for about the first two, but eventually?  I gave up on it.  Everyone at the party was probably either drunk, high, or some combination of the two.  Hell, I slept for three hours in the tub.  I had nothing better to do.

I got lucky, eventually: Zsa Zsa and Ant, wrapped in each others’ arms, stumbled in together.

“W-Whoa, dude.  That’s where you WERE?  I was... lookin’ all over for you... hahaha,” said Ant, accentuated by a burp.

Zsa Zsa wrinkled her nose and pushed Ant against the wall.  “Nasty.  Ugh.  Um, Dom, your girlfriends?  You might want to take them home.  Both of them are whacked out, man.  The hyper one’s even worse than before.”

I flew past them instantly, cursing under my breath.  What the hell had they gotten themselves into?

Ah, shit.  It’s too late.  I can’t finish this right now.  Man, I didn’t even get to the interesting part yet, but my eyelids keep drooping and I need to crash right now.  Shit.  All right.  Well, I’ll post the rest tomorrow or something.  Gotta check up on Ramona and Pam in the morning, anyway.  I don’t think Ramona’s going to be having too good of a time getting up.  Hangovers always suck.

Peace.

Dom

The following is a piece of what appears to be Pinkie Pie’s attempt at keeping a diary away from Equestria, scrawled on a series of stained 3x5 note cards held together precariously by a staple.

Dear Index Card Diary,

These finger things are so weird!!  Writing without your mouth feels funny-wunny.  But it’s okey-dokey-lokey for me, I know we’re all going to be okay.  Even though Twilight is totally freaking out on the inside about everything, even if she doesn’t know she is, and even though everypony else is scared, I know we’ll all be fine.  Princess Celestia and Princess Luna will find a way.  Still, though, I don’t know when they’re coming to pick us up!!  So maybe learning to use these finger things isn’t too bad of an idea.

Ooh.  Those were really good muffins.

What was I saying?  Oh yeah!!  I kind of remember Mr. Dom the Friendly Neighborhood Alien saying he was locked in the pooper for a really long time, so I guess I’ll write down everything that happened at the party while he was gone before I forget it all.  I don’t even know what Rainbow Dash will remember; she got all funny and started acting like something was wrong with her.  Maybe she got sick!  She sure was throwing up a lot when we were trying to get her into the van.

Where did it start, Pinkie Pie?

Oh!  Muffins!  Yeah, I ran out to Mr. Ant the Smoky Alien’s kitchen to make some muffins.  He had the trays and the oven and the mittens, all the stuff for making muffins, but all the food he had was weird-looking and smelt... funny.  I decided I didn’t want muffins too much anymore, because I mean, c’mon, would Nightmare Moon eat a parasprite with jam and butter at Winter Wrap-Up while playing chess against Gilda?

Exactly.

I was going to go back out and be with Dom some more because sometimes I catch him looking at me when he thinks I don’t notice (which is really totally funny because I totally do but he totally doesn’t know that I do what he thinks I do when I actually do what he thinks I don’t do which he only does because he thinks that I don’t do what I’m actually doing), maybe get the Ant alien to take me to the Ant Alien Overlord Mother Superior Dropped the Gun, and then all of a sudden, all these other aliens came rushing in!

I was super-duper quick and jumped up onto the kitchen counter.  It was a good thing, too, because soon enough the entire room was full of the aliens!  Some were really tall, some were really short; some were really hairy, some were really bald; some were really plump, some were really thin; they all had different mane colors, and I guess it was their skin that I could see the most?  That was all different colors too.

Tee-hee.  They’re all naked.

One of the aliens looked like a mare, with really long green hair and thick eyelashes.  She had ginormous teeth that looked like they were going to bite me whenever she opened her mouth, and she was staring at me, all up in my Pinkie Pie business!

“Excuse me Miss Alien, why are you staring at me?  It’s making my Pinkie Pie sense all sorts of funny!” I gasped as an idea came to my mind.  “Can you get me ingredients to make muffins?!  I’m sooooooo hungry!  Please?” I asked.  I thought it was a simple question.

She started to laugh.  When she spoke, she sounded funny, like she got her words out in a different way than Mr. Dom did.  It was almost kinda like Applejack, but all wrong.  “‘Ello love, gettin’ a lil’ bit antsy with tha special brownies, eh?  Drewbaby wasn’t gunna make ‘em ‘till later t’noight, yah?”

“Brownies?  Oh no no Miss Alien, I want muffins.  Muffins are very different than brownies.  Do you know cooking?  Can you cook?  I can cook.  Wait.  No.  I can bake.  OH MY GOSH.  Maybe you can cook and I can bake and we can be a cooking/baking team and make food and get famous and give free food to ponies everywhere!”  It sounded like a great idea to me.

She laughed again, braying and wheezing.  “Yer a funny one, yahear that lass?  Comin’ to tha party prepared.  Who sells ya yer stoof, eh?  Ah’ll be wuntin’ summa that later t’noight, yah?”

“You talk funny.”

“Yah talk foony yerself, gal.  Name’s Sheena.”

“Ooh!  Are you a punk rocker?”

“...Ah, no?”

“Hmm.  Just wondering.  I’m Pinkie Pie!  Er, Pam Pearl.  Whichever.  Are you my friend??  I LOVE MAKING NEW FRIENDS!”

Sheena laughed, hacking up something gurgly in her throat.  If she wasn’t so nice of an alien I would’ve pointed out how her mouth had sores around it or her eyes had really dark bags or how she kind of looked like she was really really REALLY sick, but she was a nice alien, so I didn’t point that out.

“Yah?  Me too, girleh.  Come along, won’tcha?  Ah got ta show ya to mah friends.”

“MORE FRIENDS!”  Gleefully, I jumped off of the counter and into the ocean of aliens.

So many aliens!  I met so many aliens!  So many friends!  There was Jaime, there was Stan, there was Daniel and Levi, there was Eileen and Wendy and Lola, there was Roxanne and Beth and Dillon and Everett and Taylor and Kimi and Austin and Paco, there was J.P. and Quinton and Megan and Sarah and... oh my good golly gosh, there’s just too many for me to even try to remember!

Sheena stayed with me most of the time, introducing me to the aliens, making sure I wasn’t swallowed in the crowd.  Sheena was a nice alien.

Rainbow Dash popped up a few times when Sheena and I were going around, playing this funny looking game with a little white ball and red cups in triangles on a table.  It looked like tennis!  Whatever it was, she looked like she was winning.  Hmm.  I have to ask her when she wakes up.  She got REALLLLLL loopy somewhere along the way.  Maybe she ate something bad.

Oh.  Uh, yeah.

Sheena went outside at one point to “have a smoke”, so I followed her, because I liked Sheena and because I didn’t get how she had a smoke.  Was it in her pocket?  Did she conjure it with magic?  Could she send us back home?  I had to find out, sworn by my Pinkie Pie-est oath to help my friends get home AT ANY COST.

FOREVERRRRRRRR.

The sky outside was the same color as Princess Luna’s hair.  I looked up at the moon, half-expecting her to come flying down from the heavens and zap me back to Equestria, but it didn’t happen.

I still wanna be zapped.

Sheena had this weird white stick in her mouth and held up a little fire to the end, sucking on the stick like it was a candy cane.  She blew a gust of smoke out of her mouth and cocked an eye toward me, kinda smirking too.

“Wanna cancer-stick, gal?” she offered.  I don’t like smoke too much, it makes my lungs feel all ewwy, so I said no.  Sheena shrugged.  “Suit yaself.”

“What’s cancer?”

She spat all over herself laughing.  Before, when she laughed, I had laughed too, because, I mean, C’MON, I’m the Element of Laughter, right??  But after a while, I realized that Sheena thought different things were funny than me and it wasn’t worth it trying to laugh with her.

“Yer a reg’lar arse, yaknow that, gal?  Love it girleh.  Love it.”

“Oh.  Uh, thanks, Sheena.”

We stood outside for a moment or two, too quiet for my tastes.

“Welp, I’m goin’ partyin’ again, see ya later alligator!” I yelled over my shoulder as I walked back towards the house.

The alien’s hoof (hand, silly willy, hand) clomped down by my neck; I could feel Sheena breathing behind me, the cancer-stick fumes hot on my skin, and she seemed closer than anypony usually got to me without me getting there first.

Oh my gosh.  I HAVE MOSTLY SKIN SO I’M ALL NAKED TOO.

But besides that, Sheena twirled me around, still holding me tight in her power.  Still a nice alien, Sheena, but she looked unexpectedly terrifying in the shadows of the night.

“Lissen, girleh... Ah like ya.  Yer fun.  Bit o’ a ditz, but ‘ey, whatsit ta me?  Anyways, since Ah like ya... how ‘bout ya try some Adam, eh?  Really getchyer party started, if ya know whut Ah mean, yah?”

“Adam?  Is that another alien?” I thought she meant another friend.

“Yaknow.  Debs.  Cloud nine.  Blue kisses.  Four layf clovah.”

“...What in Celestia are you talking about?!”

“Oh, c’mon, gal.  Yaknow!  E!  Ecstasy!  Tha happy pill?”

“...Okey-dokey-lokey... I’m still not getting what you’re trying to say, Sheena.”

She sighed irritably and pulled something out of her pocket, way different than the white cancer-stick.  A little blue pill with a smiley face on it.  It looked almost like...

“CANDY!” I screamed, and Sheena grinned.

“Yah!  Ya got it!  Fuckin’ foinally.”

Nodding excitedly, I snatched the little candy and practically swallowed it.

“Thanks so much Sheena!  How’d you know I love candy more than ANYTHING?!”

She smiled again with those big, bitey teeth.  “Figured ya were one who did, Ah guess.”

That was when the... funny things happened.

Don’t make any mistake, Index Card Diary, I love everything funny and fun.  I mean, duh, I’m Pinkie Pie!  We’re synonymous!  But this wasn’t ‘fun’ funny.  I mean, it was fun when it was happening, and I guess for the aliens it was funny, but I really meant funny like how dirty socks smell after weeks of not being washed, not funny like a prank.  Besides, now I feel tired and thirsty and achy.

And... sad.

I feel sad.

Why do I feel so sad?

Maybe I should take the funny candy again.  It made me even happier than usual; I’m sure it could cheer me up all over again!

Hoo boy, though, but after I took the candy pill?  BOOM!  I was a rocket!  I know I talk fast and move quick and party hard all the time, but the candy must’ve been the biggest sugar rush I’ve ever had, because I talked even faster and moved quicker and partied even harder!  I couldn’t stop dancing!  I kept picking up aliens and making them dance with me, even if they didn’t want to!  And oh my GOSH, the music!  THE MUSIC!  I always like music and singing and songs, but somepony was playing the kind of songs that DJ Pon-3 puts on at the bestest pony parties, and SWEET CELESTIA, I had to dance!

One of the aliens told me I’d been dancing for hours, which was surprising, because it only felt like a few minutes.  But that was okay.

Oh, and the COLORS.  Colors everywhere.  Colors in my brain.  Colors on my mind.  Colors on me.  Everywhere I looked, something new was popping out, like this one alien’s super-duper fantastically vermillion-colored hair that totally looked like a fire.  I stared at it for an hour!  The flames danced with me, and I just couldn’t stop laughing, no matter if I wanted to be Pinkie Pie silly or not!

And, gosh, I think I must have said I loved everypony at the party a million times.  I mean, I always love everypony I meet (that’s just how Pinkie Pie rolls her personality dough in the bakery of life), but I just kept saying it, like the words were pouring out of my mouth and I wasn’t even the one who was talking!  I just kept TOUCHING the aliens too, over and over and over.  Whenever I touched somepony else, it was pure Pinkie Pie bliss!  Like every little contact was another party all over again.  I just wanted to be friends with everypony (and every alien) in the whole wide world, and NOTHING was going to stop me!

I was still dancing and laughing and touching and telling aliens I loved them from the very bottom of my deep Pinkie Pie heart when Mr. Dom found me.  Poor Mr. Dom was carrying Rainbow Dash, because she got sick while I was dancing and started to throw up a lot and slurred her words when she talked and laughed at weird things, kinda like Sheena.

Ooh, Sheena!  I have no idea where that alien went.  She left me alone after I took the candy.  She said something about shooting a heroine, which I thought was real weird, because who would try to shoot a hero?  The urge to dance harder than any other pony had ever danced before was too much, though, so I just let her do her own thing.  I forgot to tell Mr. Dom about her when we started to leave.  Maybe I’ll tell him tomorrow!

“PAM?  WE’RE LEAVING!” he shouted over the music, trying to tap my shoulder while holding a feeble Dashie.  I was all sweaty from dancing so much, and kinda deaf, but I heard him anyway and pulled the two of them into a tight hug.

“OHMYGOSH, MR. DOM!  I’M HAVING SO MUCH FUNNY-WUN!  CAN WE DANCE ALL NIGHT!  WHAT’S WRONG WITH RAINBOW DASH?  HELLOOOOOO!  DASHIE!  WAKE UP!  DANCE WITH ME!  I LOVE YOU GUYS, DID YOU KNOW THAT!  I LOVE EVVVVVVVVVERYPONY HERE!  HAHAHAHAHA!”

Rainbow gurgled something back down her throat and moaned pathetically.

“MAYBE LATER.  WE HAVE TO GO HOME NOW, PAM.  PLEASE COME WITH ME?  I NEED HELP WITH RAMONA.”

“HER NAME’S RAINBOW DASH, SILLY-WILLY!  AND I’LL ONLY COME IF YOU LET ME GIVE YOU A PECK ON THE CHEEK!”

Mr. Dom’s cheeks got really red.  I think he was blushing!  I just wanted to kiss him, though.  It felt right, at the moment.

“UH... OKAY?”

I giggled and threw myself around him, pulling his face into my wet smooch.  He felt really hot to the touch, like he was embarrassed about something.  I wonder what?

“THERE!  NOW WE CAN GO.  OFF TO THE VANNNNNNNNNNNNN!!” I yelled, charging through the aliens to the door.  Guess even aliens know to get out of the way of a Pinkie Pie trying to get somewhere, because they all moved out of my way!  Such nice aliens.

Mr. Dom, still kinda red, dragged Rainbow along and set her against the front of his van, fumbling in his pants for the thingy that made it move.  Rainbow Dash turned away from the machine to let loose some grossy-wossy vomit on the ground.  When she was done, she started coughing, and I think she was even crying a little, what with those tears in her eyes!  I felt so bad, I went over and gave her another great big hug.

“YOU’RE GONNA BE OKAY, DASHIE!” I yelled, even though the music was only inside the house.

“...Mmmneh...” she groaned, leaning into my antennae.

“Dashie!  Try talking into the antennae!  Maybe you’ll call the Predator Queen Mother Overlord Dictator Alien!” I whispered into her ear.

She didn’t try.

Mr. Dom finally opened up the van, looking really concerned.  Maybe it was about Rainbow Dash being so sick all of a sudden, or maybe it was because I gave him that little kiss.  I’ll ask him tomorrow!  He’ll be awake by then.

“Pam?  Can you bring her into the car?  Keep her by the window, in case she needs to... you know... barf, or whatever.”

“OKEY-DOKEY!” I jumped into the middle seat, plopping Dashie down next to me and slamming the door behind us so she wouldn’t fall out.  As soon as I let go, she dropped down on the seat and crawled up in a ball, grumbling softly to herself.  Mr. Dom jumped in as the driver, and turned the van on eagerly.

He was still blushing.

By the time we got back to the apartment, I think the candy had worn off.  In fact, I know it did: for the first time in my life, I was actually tired after a party.  I still am now, too.

The ride back had been real quiet, except for Dashie waking up every ten minutes or so to tell us something important in gibberish and go back to being all sick.  Mr. Dom didn’t talk to me much, kept his eyes on the road.  It was probably the kiss.  That’s okay, though.  Sitting next to him, I could feel his body grazing mine, and that felt real cool, even without the candy.

When we got back, it was super-duper late, so Mr. Dom and I went into stealth mode trying to get Dashie back into the apartment.  Boy, carrying her up all those stairs was hard!  Especially being so randomly tired.  And she kept trying to roll off on us, but we didn’t let that happen, nosiree!  Not on Pinkie Pie’s watch!

The apartment was pitch black, except for these little red numbers and letters that came from the kitchen area.  “2:37 A.M.”  It took me a second to realize that it was a clock.  It was so late!  Or early.  I never get where super later and super early become different.  Time is funny, isn’t it, Index Card Diary?

Dom found one of the empty rooms and put Rainbow into the bed, careful not to drop her too hard.  Guess he still felt bad about running her over, and now what with Dashie being sick, he couldn’t have felt much better!  Poor alien.

He was going to leave the room, though, but Dashie grabbed his... what’s it called, an arm?... she grabbed his arm out of nowhere.  It was real dark, so I couldn’t see too well, but I could tell he was as confused as I was.

Dashie mumbled something incomprehensible, choking out the words.

“...What?” he said, almost like he was afraid.

“...Party... party was cool,” she breathed.  Dashie let him go.  She turned over in the bed, and after a minute, I guess we both must’ve realized that she was snoring softly.

“What a silly sick pony,” I whispered.  Mr. Dom didn’t respond.  “I’ll stay with her tonight, Mr. Dom, don’t worry.  Nurse Pinkie Pie will make sure Dashie doesn’t hurl all over your room!”

“Thanks, Pam.  Um... goodnight, I guess.”

“Goodnight, I guess, too!”

“...We’ll talk about the party tomorrow, yeah?”

“Sure as Celestia brings up the sun every morning!”

“Uhhh... sure.”

And then Mr. Dom the Alien left, and I’ve been writing on you ever since, Index Card Diary.

I want to go to sleep real bad, because I’m really really REALLY tired, but I can’t.  This usually never happens to me.  Twilight told me about it too, one time.  What’s it called again?  Inzombia?

OH MY GOSH!  AM I A ZOMBIE?!

Hmmm... no.  I licked Dashie’s hindlegs to see if I had a craving for pony, but I didn’t get hungry.  Oh well.  At least I’m not a zombie!  Still, though, this Pinkie Pie is tired, and she just can’t go to sleep!

Darn inzombia.

...Can I tell you a secret, Index Card Diary?

You have to promise!  To keep your promise FOREVERRRRR.

...I really want some of that candy again.  It... it made me feel so much better than... than I ever have in my entire life.

All I want is some more of that wonderful candy.

Maybe when everypony else wakes up and Mr. Dom and I can talk about last night, I can ask him if he has some.

...I hope he does.

I need some.

I’m just so tired, and I can’t get to sleep!  I need a pick-me-up.  Just a little one.  Some little bit of candy wouldn’t hurt anypony, I know it.

Just one more, and I’ll be okey-dokey-lokey, I know it.

Why do I feel like somepony’s watching me?  It can’t be Dashie, she’s out cold!  Everypony else is asleep.  I can hear them all snoring and dreaming, leaving me all alone to face the night.

Did you hear that, Index Card Diary?

...Oh Celestia.

All I want is the candy to make the scary things to go away.  I can’t laugh this off, not right now.

I’m... I’m going to go into bed with Rainbow Dash, Index Card Diary.  I need to know somepony else is here with me, even if she’s not awake.

Just having her here next to me makes things so much better.

But I’m still scared.

And tired.

And thirsty.

And achy.

And sad.

I’ll just hide under the covers and hug Dashie for now.  I’ll have some candy in the morning!  Then things will be better, you’ll see!

I gotta try to go to sleep, Index Card Diary.

But I don’t know if I can.

Goodnight, Index Card Diary.

Please keep me safe.