The sun was already low in the sky by the time the last bell of the school day rang. Memento Mori was the first one out of her classroom, the first one out in the halls, and the first to her locker—all in an attempt to be the first one to make it outside, before anypony else could talk to her. But just as she was pulling her jacket off the hook, she could hear the clattering of hooves behind her. And not just those of the ponies from classes in the distance, filling the halls. No, these were the distinctive clack-clack of horseshoes on the tile right behind her, sending a shiver up her spine.
Then, a familiar sneer: "Well, what do we have here?"
Gulping, Mori turned. She was met with a familiar pair of yellow eyes, looming over her. "H-hi, Spitting."
The taller filly flared her nostrils, stamping a white hoof on the tile emphatically. "I told you," she hissed venomously. "Call me Venom."
"S-Sorry," Mori murmured. She looked down at the ground.
"No, look at me when I'm talking to you!" Spitting Venom growled. "Ugh... you worthless, talentless bitch. Do you act this dumb all the time?"
Mori opened her mouth to respond—even if she didn't know what she was going to say. She didn't get the chance, though; before she could get any words out, Venom had smacked her muzzle with a hoof.
"Don't talk back to me, blank flank." The words were poison, leaking out of Venom's mouth and spilling into Mori's ears. Again and again and again, every day of her life.
"D-do you want anything?" Mori stammered. And then, surprising even herself, she added, "Or can I go now?"
Venom blinked. "Yeah, you can go. I sure as hell don't want you here."
Mori threw the jacket over top of her saddlebags and slipped past Venom and into the stream of students surging through the hall, out towards the world. She hoped she could blend in before any more words were thrown her way, and yet...
"Where the hell are you going, anyway? Home? I'm sure your parents don't want you either, not if you can't figure out what you're going to do by secondary school!"
And the walls blackened, and the students' chatter became a dull, thrumming buzz somewhere in the background. Mori's heart sank deep in her chest as the bite of the autumn breeze nipped at her muzzle for the first time since the morning.
The wind whistled by Mori's ears, and the filly shivered. Her gaze was trained downwards, studying the sidewalk, looking for any sort of flaw or defect so that she could avoid them with her hooves.
Step on a crack, break your momma's back.
Mori didn't look up until she reached an intersection, and she only looked up to make sure no wagons or passersby were coming her way. But of course there weren't any, and the streets remained as empty as ever. A vacant, useless neighbourhood.
Useless like yourself.
As she reached the opposite corner, before she could look back down to the concrete, Mori paused before the house that was on the corner. Its punched-out windows were dark and lifeless, hanging tired in the structure of the building. The wooden siding was decayed, eaten away by some sort of insect. Mori could just barely remember when her friend Ruddy had lived there, years and years ago.
But then he left. Like everyone will, once they realise how useless you are.
Mori twitched her gaze away, and started moving again. Just as she looked down, however, she realised that her hoof had landed down exactly where it wasn't supposed to—right on a large crack, that had small green plants poking out.
But the filly closed her eyes, and trudged onward.
Memento Mori opened her eyes, and let out a short breath. It fogged up the bathroom mirror in front of her, though she could still see herself standing on a chair in front of the sink. And she could still see her flank, blank as the day she was born.
Mori sighed. Her parents hadn't been there when she got home, of course; they both had to work, much past the hours that most fillies and colts at her school would be having dinner with their families and sharing all about what they did that day. But no, the house was empty, and the emptiness filled with darkness, even after Mori had drawn the curtains to a close and lit the candles in the dining room.
She couldn't even look at herself as she pulled the loop of rope between her hooves and over her head, wearing it like a necklace. With a burst of magic from her horn, she affixed the rope to the ceiling. Lifting a hoof, she could feel that it wasn't quite taut—but that was what the chair was for, after all.
Once more she opened her eyes, and Mori took another look at herself in the mirror. She found herself hardly able to tell the difference between the bags beneath her eyes and the mottled, bruised flesh on her cheeks. All she saw in the mirror was a haggard filly, one who had spent too many sleepless nights being afraid of having to go back to school, having to face the endless taunts of 'blank flank, blank flank', being shoved into lockers and into trash cans. Spitting Venom was only the latest one to come after her, and even when she lost interest, there would always be more to come.
But there would be no more of that, not if she had anything to say about it. One moment of agency, and that was it.
Mori hesitated. If she was able to be this decisive for once in her life... could she do it again? Could she find friends, could she push the bullies away?
But Venom was right. She was useless. Even fighting against Venom and other ponies like her wouldn't change the fact that she was in secondary school, and still didn't have her cutie mark.
Closing her eyes, Memento took one more unrestricted breath. Then, she kicked the chair out from beneath her hooves.
Immediately, she felt a sharp falling sensation, only to stop a moment later as the rope constricted around her neck. Instinctively, her mouth flew open, gasping for breath. Her hooves rose to her neck, scrabbling frantically at the rope, trying as hard as they might to pull it off. And her eyes glanced in the only direction they could, towards the mirror, gazing out into the darkness.
And then, just like that, in abject horror, Memento Mori stopped struggling. There had been a flash of light on her flank, and a small symbol appeared. A horrible, horrible symbol.
Mori bit her lip, and closed her eyes, and for her, everything went black.
And when her parents came home that night, calling her name, they entered the bathroom, flicked on the light switch, and, gasping, could only stare at their daughter hanging from the ceiling.
And on her flank lay the jet-black silhouette of a noose.
