The six of them stood in front of the sticker-covered door, unsure of what exactly they were meant to do in this situation. Eventually, it was Rarity who broke the awkward moment, stepping up to the door and knocking.
“Pinkie, darling? Are you all right in there?”
The only response was a muffled squeak from the other side of the door.
“It’s just that, when you didn’t come to school today, we were all very worried…”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash added. “And then we get a text from Maud, of all people, telling us to come see you! What gives?”
More squeaking.
Sunset stood in front of the door. “Pinkie, can we come in?”
No answer this time.
“I’m taking that as a yes.” She pushed the door open, and the six friends filed in.
Pinkie’s room was a mess, but that was nothing unusual. The various bits of confetti, balloons, stramers, and other party supplies strewn about looked right at home. What was unusual was that the curtains had been drawn, blocking out the light of the afternoon sun and leaving the room in a dim twilight. Stranger still was the slightly quivering mound of sheets and quilts piled on the bed. As they got nearer, it grew still.
“Pinkie? You in there?” Rainbow asked, patting the covers.
“Mm-hm,” they answered.
“Are you alright?” asked Fluttershy.
“Mm’ fine,” came the muffled response.
“Would you mind coming out from there, darling?” Rarity asked.
“Mm-mm.”
The six cast each other a look. At once, Rainbow grabbed one side of the pile while Sunset grabbed the other. Together, they pulled the sheets off of the bed, despite some resistance from its occupant. This revealed Pinkie, fully clothed in the same outfit she had worn the day before, as well as a rumpled pink jacket. Her hair lay in a pink pool about her head, straight and flat rather than its normal frizzy self (a sight that everyone found strangely unsettling). Her eyes were slightly red, and lacked their usual shine.
Most disturbing of all, however, was the incredibly fake-looking smile that stood out on her face like a crooked frame in an art gallery.
“Hi girls!” she said, in a voice that held far less joy than it was likely meant to convey.
Rarity gasped. “Pinkie Pie, you look absolutely dreadful!”
“What do you mean, Rarity? I’m just fine, see?” she responded, once again flashing that mockery of a smile.
“Pinkie, I know fine. This is about as far from fine as I have ever seen you.” Twilight put her hand on Pinkie’s shoulder, gently pulling her up into a sitting position; her hair draped down her back like a curtain. “What’s going on?”
The smile fell from her face. It was replaced with a sad, but sincere, frown.
“No good, huh…” She sighed. “I’m sorry, girls, I just… I guess I just didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“It’s okay Pinkie. You’re our friend! Nothing you do will make us think any less of you,” Sunset said, the others adding their own affirmations. “Now, will you tell us what’s wrong?”
“I don’t really want to talk to anyone right now…”
Fluttershy spoke up. “I think it’s when you feel that way that it’s the most important that you do talk to someone.”
Pinkie sat for a few moments, thinking. The others began to get a little restless, when…
“Sunset… Could I talk to you? Alone, please?”
Sunset blinked, surprised. “Um… sure, if you want.” She sat down on the bed. The others looked worried and confused as well, but they made their way to the door all the same. Twilight, the last one out, gave them a slightly reassuring smile as she pulled the door closed behind her.
“So, what’s—” She was interrupted as Pinkie grabbed her hand and pressed it against her forehead.
“Telempath me,” she commanded.
“What? But, Pinkie—”
“Please,” she pleaded. “I don’t know if I can explain with just words.”
“…Okay.” Sunset closed her eyes. When they opened again, they had been replaced by twin pools of light.
After only a second, Sunset gasped, pulling her hand away as her eyes cleared. Breathing heavily, she brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them to her body, her eyes wide and staring as she tried to get a grip on what she had just experienced.
Pinkie pulled her into a teary hug. “Oh, Sunset, I’m so sorry! I should have never have asked you to do this!”
“No, it’s okay…” She let out a long, soft exhale as she relaxed her posture. “I knew you weren’t your usual self, but…” She swallowed. “I’ve never felt anything like this…”
“Hollow?” Pinkie suggested quietly, her eyes shifting to the carpet.
“Yeah.”
The two sat in silence for another minute.
“Pinkie, I feel it, but... I don’t understand. What made you feel like this? I saw you riding the bus home after band practice…”
Pinkie didn’t say anything for a little while, her hands shuffling in her lap. Then, just as Sunset was going to say something else, she spoke up.
“I was on the bus, like you said, and there was no one I really knew riding with me, so I didn’t have anybody to talk to. But that was okay, since Rainbow’s birthday is only five months away, so I started planning it out in my head: what kind of decorations to use, what flavor of cake to bake, what games to bring…”
“You organize your parties that far in advance?” Sunset asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Of course!” Pinkie replied, some of her old energy reappearing. “Party planning is serious business!”
The energy drained away just as fast as it had come. “But then I had this weird thought: I’m always thinking. When I’m at school, when I’m at home, even when I’m hanging out with you girls, there’s still something else going on in my brain. An idea, or a song that’s stuck in my head, or… It’s like I’m always only half there. And the thought wouldn’t go away, so…”
She sighed. “So I forced myself to stop thinking for a while, and I just listened to what the other people on the bus were saying.”
“And what were they saying?” Sunset asked.
“They weren’t saying anything!” she exclaimed, waving her hands for emphasis. “Or, nothing important, anyway! Nothing that mattered!”
The sudden outburst startled Sunset. “What do you mean?”
“Like…” Pinkie stood up and began pacing in a small circle. “Like there were these two kids, younger than us, and they were talking about some pop star’s butt, or something— and that’s all they talked about! For fifteen minutes! And then they got off, and these two older women got on. And then they started talking about the same stupid thing!”
She paused for a breath. “And then there were these three guys, and they started talking about politics. And one of them was one way, and the other two were the other way… It got really nasty. They weren’t even making points, or debating anything, either! They were just insulting each other, back and forth, over and over! The driver had to tell them to quiet down after only a few minutes! And, and—”
“Pinkie—”
“And none of it meant anything! It all just seemed so, so… so pointless! And the more I heard, the ickier it made me feel inside…”
She sighed, then flopped back down onto the bed, her arms splayed out against the mattress.
“And… and then I started wondering if we were like that too, if I was like that. And then I started to wonder if… If everything was like that. If anything even had a point anymore…”
“And that’s when you started to feel like this,” Sunset finished for her.
“Mm-hm.” Pinkie cast her a sad half-smile. “I know, I’m just being silly. You can laugh if you want.”
Sunset leaned back and fell onto the bed beside her. “Well, I can’t say I understand, exactly… but I can kind of relate, in a weird way.”
Pinkie blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” Sunset took a deep breath, then let it out all at once. “When I first came here, to this world, from Equestria… I wasn’t impressed. You have to understand, I was in full ‘evil empress’ mode back then, and I’d just come from a world where magic was commonplace and a good chunk of the population lived in cloud cities. In comparison, this place just seemed… dull. Meaningless, even.”
She sighed. “I think that’s part of why I found it so easy to manipulate and use people here. I didn’t really see them as anything worth actually caring about.”
“What changed?”
“You did.” Sunset smiled. “You and the rest of the girls. You gave me something to care about. It’s the reason I stuck around here instead of going back to Equestria.” She laid her hand on Pinkie’s shoulder. “I know that probably didn’t help much, but…”
Pinkie gave her a sad smile— sad, but genuine.
“It didn’t, but I do feel a bit better.”
The two laid there in the darkness for a while, staring at Pinkie’s ceiling fan.
“Sunset?”
“Yes, Pinkie?”
“Equestria sounds nice. What’s it like there?”
Sunset chuckled. “Well…”
