The bell rings, dismissing the Wonderbolts trainees from their classes or training exercises. Shuffling among her peers, Lightning Dust is the silence among the noise. She walks, head hung low, down the hall.
Today is the day. The day she is going to end it all.
A lonely tear runs down her face but she doesn't bother wiping it off. She's gotten so used to the feeling that wiping it off would only produce more. Her emotions are a mess. A constant drag that always brings her down in a spiral. She knew she messed up with the whole tornado thing and whatever. She knew she could have killed somepony doing what she did. She only did it because she had a need. A need to be recognized. A need to be everything her parents weren't or said she couldn't be.
She is sorry. She says it every time she looks in the mirror, before she goes to bed, even when she wakes up in the morning. She is sorry.
But her newly found humbleness has done nothing to stop everypony in the academy from hating her.
It has been two months since the incident. It started out as just people talking about her and staring at her when she walks by and within two weeks went to bullying and emotional scarring.
She's considered many times how she could get out of this. She thought about maybe just confronting those who bullied her but if she did, everypony would only hate her more. She thought of quitting the academy but to go where? She has no money, no job, and her mother is a drug addict and her father is abusive.
No, she vowed not to go back there ever again.
An option crossed her mind while reading a book one day. She had taken up reading because going to the gym had simply become a chore rather than a time of enjoyment like it used to be. Plus, going to the gym meant she would have to see the angry faces of those who still remember that day.
A note she has in her backpack that she wrote yesterday will explain everything that she is about to do.
She walks out the door of the school and down the cloudy steps. She is going to walk back to the dorm like she normally does.
Sure she could fly but the last time she did that the bullies knocked her out of the sky, damaging her wing pretty badly. It has completely healed now but no point in causing even more pain than she already felt.
She continues walking and spots the bullies in their usual hangout space. They are all sitting around a table made of sculpted clouds, laughing and having a good time.
Then they spot her. "Hey look! There's that crying bitch again!" One of them calls, making sure she heard her.
"When is that slut going to learn to stop coming this way?"
She's gone to the principal. She's gone to the Wonderbolts captain. She's told them what these mares say and do. The same answer from both being 'suck it up.' It didn't help anything. It just made her feel worse, like she wasn't equipped mentally to deal with a situation.
She used to. In grade school she stood up to bullies and nopony messed with her, but she was liked. Now she can barely raise a hoof in defense for anypony and anypony she could help with bullying wouldn't want to be helped by her. The truth is, she doesn't want to hurt these mares. Even though they hurt her, physically and mentally, she just wanted peace. To be at ease with everything.
That's when she started drinking about three weeks ago but even with her slaughtering her liver every single night and dealing with the hangovers every singe morning, the numbing effect of the alcohol began to fade.
Maybe that's why she is where she is at. Her longing for peace. To be anywhere but here. She's been backed into a
She keeps up her same pace as she passes within ten feet of the table that her abusive peers are perched on like vultures.
The edge of the massive conjunction of clouds is right past their table and that is where she will let her plan unfold.
She isn't going to do this to get back at them. She just wants the peace that will come of her actions. Besides, the academy will be a better place without her plaguing it.
The bullies stand up and start walking towards her. One thing that bothers her is that she doesn't even know the names of her tormentors. Maybe she'll ask.
The mares are now walking fast, side by side just a hoofstep or two behind Lightning Dust.
"Where are we going today, trash?" The leader of the pack of wolves asks. Lightning just keeps walking, her eyes already beginning to swell with tears.
The mare steps in front of Lightning Dust, cutting her off. "You answer when I ask a question," the mare says with anger in her voice.
To avoid getting hit Lightning Dust says, "I'm going home." She stares at the cloud below her, at the mare's hooves, but no where else.
"Did I say you could go home?" the mare asks with a snarl.
"No, but I'm...I'm not asking," Lightning says, a tear rolling down her face and falling to the cloud. She is going home today, just not the one they think.
"Excuse me?" The mare asks lowly, a hint of shock that Lightning said that. Before Lightning could reply, the mare tackles her onto her back and bites into her mane and starts pulling.
Lightning Dust cries out in surprise and pain as the mare pulls her head and Lightning desperately tries to get away. Lightning breaks free of her hold, several tears flowing down her face.
When she breaks free she backs up, only to realize she is at the edge of the cloud they are standing on. When the mare regains herself, the bully stands up and slowly walks towards her. "The fact that you think YOU can just walk wherever you want to is disgusting in and of itself. Have you looked in a mirror, whore?" The bully mocks her.
Lightning just stands on the edge and braces for what she knows is coming. The bully gets right up in front of her and shoves her. Her back legs desperately search for the cloud but it isn't there. She goes into a free fall, staring at a world she can't embrace.
She's a pegasus, she can fly. If you don't stand for something, then you are doomed to fall. Lightning Dust can't seem to find anything worth standing for. Or anything worth opening her wings for.
She slowly falls until an audible smack against the ground grabs the attention of the three bullies on top of the cloud. They look down and they one of them screams in horror, the other gasps and steps away from the ledge. The third knows what happened without seeing it and a tear comes to her eye because she was apart of what pushed that mare to do this.
