The Friends That Grief

The Friends The Grief

Prologue

"Love!" Her mother shouted her name, the sound of her voice cushioned by two doors separating them.

Love Code groaned quietly, grabbing a long fluffy towel she, still dripping, stepped out of her shower and opened the bathroom door.

"What?!" She shouted back and began to rub the wetness out of her red and pink hair.

"You better stopped playing already, you got classes tomorrow!"

Groaning again, this time audible for her mother, she dried her hands and arms and walked to her wardrobe. Opening the lowest drawer she pulled out a fresh set of matching black underwear and socks throwing them onto her bed.

"My raid ended half an hour ago!" She rolled her eyes, drying her shoulders and soft b-cup now. "I just came out of the shower."

'And I'm not twelve anymore...' She hissed mentally.

There were a few seconds of silence before she heard her mother move away from the door. "And stop reading porn all night!" She faintly heard her calling from down below.

"Mom!" She shouted back, more annoyed than embarrassed, unlocking and opening her door, the towel now brushing over her back and the rest of her lower body. "They aren't porn! They are eroti-" She looked to her left and saw her fourteen year old brother standing in the hallway, a toothbrush in his mouth, looking at her with widened eyes. With a wink and a giggle she stepped back in and slammed the door shut, locking it again.

Walking back to her bed she sat down, drying her legs and feet before stepping back to her bathroom and throwing the towel onto a pile.

Putting on her underwear she stepped in front of the mirror on her wardrobe and looked at herself. More out of routine than anything else.

She had always been quite happy with her body, especially her color scheme, her skin a beautiful hue of pink which was lovingly described as 'cotton candy pink' with bright yellow eyes and her aforementioned red and pink hair, which she was tying into a ponytail right now. Something that made her even happier was her incapability to gain weight. No matter what or how much she ate she could always keep her slim figure. She smiled as her eyes fell onto the tattoo right beneath her left collarbone she had gotten last year during a weekend with her friends. It was a black Y-Case controller with pink hearts for analog sticks that for whatever reason had felt just perfect. She giggled as she remembered what a friend of hers had said: "That's how your spirit animal looks."

Her smile faded a little bit as she remembered the huge fight she had with her parents as she came home and gloated with it. But they couldn't really do anything against it anymore. She had been eighteen at the time and pretty independent, she had even paid it herself.

Looking at the small clock on her nightstand, which was filled with a ton of RPG games, broken controller and other video game focused objects, told her that it was almost half past ten

Climbing onto her bed she wonkily walked to the small, but filled to the brim, bookcase that was over it.

Her eyes wandered over the title of the different, more or less, raunchy and risqué novels, dōjinshi manga, games and other stuff that had a place on her 'NSFWB (Not Safe for wittle brothers)-shelf'. Furrowing her brows she, now of all times, noticed that her entire life she had always been a sucker for romance, erotic and games, or a combination of these three.

'Now that I think about it...' She tilted her head, biting her lower lip softly. 'I was never shy or embarrassed if it came to sex.' A clean indicator for her that she was different in that regard had been during sex ed a few years ago, she had been... twelve? Thirteen?

Her teacher had made one of those stupid letterboxes where everyone could throw in anonymous questions. She had, as naive as she had been, ignored that and had signed her question. The next day the teacher had read her question, and called her out, but she hadn't felt embarrassed, quite the contrary, she had felt a sense of pride.

Shaking her head and interrupting the flow of memories, she focused on the bookcase again. Pulling out a thumb thick book, her favorite, she sat down. Grabbing the remote for her stereo she switched it on, jumping slightly as the news blared out of the speakers, lowering the volume slightly she began to listen.

"In other news." The announcer's voice changed a little bit. "A friend of the deceased Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, has gone missing. After the tragic accident in Canterlot a few days ago, in which miss Sparkle was run over by a truck, the other six girls were put in counseling. Miss Shimmer had shut herself in and as of later today, seems to have gone missing. Her friends were interviewed and claim 'yesterday she had gone home to tell Twilight's friends, we haven't seen her since'. Police and volunteers are questioning the neighborhood and are searching for the girl right now." The voice of the announcer changed yet again. "Now to much happier news and tomorrow's weather fore-"

"Damn... poor girl." Love whispered as she stalled the radio, setting her stereo to MP3 output. Lowering the volume to one and setting the sleep timer to one hour and the music to single repeat she typed thirty-seven in and got her favorite song to read to, Alias by In Blaze. Pulling her blanket up to her chin she looked at the title that managed to make her heart flutter every time she read it.

''Those Cold Days in Canterlot' by Mo. Lestia' She smiled, biting her lower lip, as she opened the bookmarked section, her favorite part, and began to read.

<---------->

Azalea Spring-Bloom, an art professor, was sitting on her balcony surrounded by an ocean of withering flowers, which added another reason why she was crying. She had grown these flowers by herself and the flowers had survived much, much longer than they were supposed to, the oldest of her flowers, an azalea was over twenty years old and not once even lost a single leaf. If the flowers were healthy then she was happy and healthy, if the flowers were sick then she as well felt sick. It was a weird connection she seemed to share with her flowers.

Now the flowers, even her oldest azalea, were surrounding her with hanging heads, their leaves brown and dried up. They were sharing her sadness.

On the small table in front of her was the picture of the one she was mourning, her... she wasn't even sure what he was for her. He had been strong and funny, had shared her love for birds and was astounded by her flowers.

They had traveled the continent together. He had showed her so many things and now he was gone, ripped out of her life.

Unable to contain her sobs she looked up to the crescent moon, an endless stream of tears rolling down her cheeks and even this beautiful scenery couldn't help her broken heart.

"Oh Crescent..." She cried. "Why Crescent... It's just not fair..."

And she cried deep into the night, falling asleep on her balcony on this warm summer night.

<---------->

Sunset had barely gotten back home, she was literally standing in front of her door, as the book that connected her to Equestria had started vibrating. With a heavy sigh she took off her backpack, pulling the book out, she dropped the now empty bag. Opening it, she began reading the quickly written lines.

"Sunset Shimmer, I'm very sorry to bother you again but Luna and I were noted that something has escaped Tartarus. Something that wasn't from this world to begin with. We tried to track it down but..."

Sunset could almost hear, no feel, the heavy sigh that followed this sentence.

"It managed to slip through the portal. It's on earth and it's attracted to negative emotions. What's even worse is that it creates a realm based on those emotions and fears, dispelling any magic. I want you to try and-"

Closing the book, Sunset opened her door, entering her home. She had no time for...

She dropped the book unceremoniously as she saw the thick fog that was creeping through her home as well as the metallic screeching of a valve that was reaching her ears.

"Well ain't that fucking great?" She murmured.

The door slammed shut behind her.

<---------->

It was cold, no freezing, and dark.

She could barely feel her fingers and toes.

Confused she looked down and saw her hands grasping a long knife, blood dripping from it's tip, an amber-skinned girl with read and yellow hair lying in front of her, her empty turquoise eyes staring at the ceiling, blood weakly gushing from a stab wound in her throat.

Gasping she dropped the knife and looked up.

The world around her was dark and grimy, coated with rust and blood. She could hear loud, moaning screams echoing through the hallways. It was impossible for her to tell though if they were screams of pleasure or terror.

She had to go. She didn't know why she had that feeling or where she had to go to. All she knew was that she had to leave, it was too late and she wasn't supposed to be here anymore. She...

"Love?"

She heard a voice calling her name and the world began to shake as a heavy scratching of metal on metal stung in her ears.

"Love Code."

The voice called again. It had gotten a little sterner but also had a slight lilting tone now. The world around her crumbled away.

"Miss Code!"