I'm Real

by Feeling Grand

Rating: teen
Tags: Sad, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Rainbow Dash, Thriller, Original Character, Horror
Length: 18322

A young girl discovers that Rainbow Dash, a cartoon pony, is now real, existing consciously in her TV screen.

Ten year old Anna must stay with her granny in the isolated countryside for the summer. But when she turns on the TV to watch her favourite show My Little Pony, something strange happens. Something not possible. One of the ponies sees her. One pony hears her. And now one pony wants to know reality. And why she now has a consciousness... while the rest of fictional world doesn't.

Published 2017-02-24 01:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-06-23 16:29:19 UTC

Chapter 1

I always remembered her eyes... and how she wanted to be real.

I always remembered the way she looked the day when she realized she was. When I realized she was.

I was only ten. My name is Anna. The year was 2016. I loved the show My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. I used to hurry home every day after school and watch it on TV when I discovered it at age nine.

I was a bit annoyed I had to spend my summer at my grandmother's house. My grandmother was old and stinky, and even though she was always giving me hard candy, I wanted to be free in my own neighbourhood with the other kids my age.

Not in the middle of the country side in the blazing heat by myself with no other children around.

I had a sad face on me when I was dropped off at my grandmother's. She looked at me with a big toothy grin and I just frowned, turning my clear blue eyes down to the ground.

"Don't worry, Anna... mum will be fine. Just be good for Granny." My dad had told me. I knew mum was sick and was in hospital and dad needed to be there for her.

But I wanted to be there too. She was sick, me being there could make her better.

I missed her lovely brown hair. It was gone now. All I could see when I looked at my mother these days was just a bald scalp. And hollows under her eyes, her pale skin.

My granny took my hand and led me into her old crooked house. It was wooden and made of timber I think. I don't know. I didn't want to be there... I looked outside the kitchen window as she led me around and said to me.

"You can play in the backyard whenever you like. Just tell me first."

"Yes, Granny..."

"Anna, don't be worried about your mum. She'll be fine."

"I know..." I said. I wasn't even thinking about mum. Just thinking about how I was alone here with my grandmother. No cousins, no kids to play with and hang out with. No one.

"Well, go outside and play, while I make dinner."

I opened my eyes surprised to hear that. It was only three in the day. Who ate dinner this early? I sighed, and nodded my head. I headed for the front door, and just turned my head back around to look at the old house.

There was cobwebs in the corners of where the ceilings met the walls. There was dust everywhere. I sighed again, and left.

I went outside and saw I was surrounded by many trees and dry green grass. I kept in the shade so that the heat wouldn't hurt my skin. I played a game where I jumped to each shadowy spot of grass, avoiding the sun. As I jumped to the last shady area, I suddenly felt a gust of wind and tripped forward a little. I felt the wind blow my clothes and hair chaotically around and I shivered as I heard it howl like a wolf.

I was scared. I did not like my granny's place. It was scary and isolating. It was where my dad grew up with his three siblings. I don't know how he could've been brave enough to live here.

I stood there, grabbing the sides of my arms as I shivered, and saw the sun hide behind a cloud. I walked back indoors and closed the door.

I could smell food cooking. It smelt like potatoes and pork. I stuck out my tongue a little. I didn't like potatoes that much. They were icky.

I walked to the living area and saw a tiny old square television with a big boxy backside to it in a wooden cabinet. I looked at it, and sighed. We had a thirty inch television at home. This one was so small. I didn't feel my enthusiasm for this place increasing at all. No, instead it was the opposite. It was decreasing with every minute that went by.

I looked at the time on the old coo-coo clock to see it was time for my show. I suddenly beamed a smile and turned on the telly. I wasn't sure how to work it exactly. It didn't have a remote and only had dials and buttons on it.

I flicked through the channels by pressing the button that had a down arrow and finally my show popped on.

My little pony, my little pony...

I sat down and watched it, listening to the theme song play loudly and watched as my show started.

I looked to see it was a new episode. Princess Twilight had to deal with Spike getting too cocky, and I laughed as I watched this. There was a scene with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, where Rainbow said.

"Look's like we'll have to investigate. The cool way."

I giggled at the way she said that, rubbing her hoofs together evilly, and she suddenly blinked, looking around confused, while Fluttershy spoke.

"Oh, Rainbow. I'm sure he's acting this way because of his new friend."

Rainbow seemed to glitch a little in the scene and I crooked my eyebrows up confused, watching her, lost.

"Yeah, you're right Fluttershy. But we need to be sure."

"You tell her, Rainbow Dash!" I shouted at the screen and Rainbow Dash seemed to glitch a little again in the screen. Her eyes suddenly seemed to gaze right out to me and I jumped a little, frightened.

"Who said that?" Rainbow said.

"...m-me..." I mumbled. The screen seemed to freeze a little. Like my granny's TV had really bad reception, but I could see Rainbow Dash blink as she looked at me. She was the only one not fuzzy and she spoke back quietly.

"You...?"

I screamed, and the TV flashed a few colours, before she glitched again and the next scene had come on, showing her back to normal and talking to Spike and Twilight.

I quickly ran up to the television and turned it off. My granny hurried into the room, as fast as an elderly granny could, and looked at me terrified, asking.

"Anna, what's wrong...?"

"The- the- the pony on the TV t-talked to me!"

"The what, honey?" My grandmother asked, baffled, and I swallowed, getting up and bursting into tears.

"The pony Rainbow Dash, looked at me, and she TALKED to me!"

"Anna, don't be silly." My granny told me, with a relieved laugh. "That's impossible. You imagined it."

"N-no..." I peeped, wiping my eyes and she nodded her head knowingly.

"That's a cartoon... and you are a real girl. In the real world."

"But she w-was real..."

"I thought you were getting a bit too big for make-believe, Anna." My granny told me, shaking her head with a tsk tsk sound. I stood there, not knowing what else to say, before my granny said to me with a kind smile. "Come on, time for dinner."

I had red eyes from the tears I had cried. But I obeyed her, and followed the grey haired woman out to the dining room, where my meal of potatoes and pork were waiting for me.

I didn't feel like eating. My stomach felt like it was doing flips and tosses in terror at what I thought I had seen. Did I just imagine it? I didn't know. I felt really stupid now. Maybe I had day dreamed it... but it seemed so real.

I had to check out if this phenomenon was real. I would google it after dinner.

I asked granny if I could use her computer after I had forced the food down my throat and she just laughed.

"Sweetie, I don't have a computer."

"What?"

"Yep... you're old fashioned granny doesn't believe in them."

"Well do you have any internet?"

"Nope. That stuff corrupts the mind."

"No, it doesn't..?" I said confused and my granny just laughed.

"Yes it does, silly."

I sighed, disappointed and frustrated.

After dinner I got out my phone to see if I could get any internet reception on my phone, but there was none. I think the trees were blocking it. Plus there was some mountains a little in the distance that would've disrupted the signal as well.

I sat down on the couch with a big huff out, in despair. This all couldn't be happening. I needed to know why I thought I saw Rainbow Dash talking to me on the screen. I had never seen anything like that before in all my life. Was I crazy...?

Was I a nut like those crazy people in those asylums I had heard of?

I didn't feel crazy? If I was crazy I would be jumping all about the place and screaming and shouting... I'm pretty sure I would.

Plus, I was ten. And even though I did stupid things every once in a while, I rarely did anything that was even slightly insane.

X

I lay in bed that night, shivering and shaking in fear of the creeks and whistling I heard in the house. There was a draft that made everything squeak and shake and made me nervous and upset over it all. I was such a coward. I couldn't help it.

I normally wasn't afraid of the dark. But in this country side, it was completely black. At home in the city suburbs, there would always be some sort of light from the street lamps outside, or from a neighbour's house.

And there would be normal noise like dogs barking, cats meowing and people talking in the houses next door.

Here... the noises weren't normal... no, they were scary. They were unnatural.

They were of squeaks, and of wind howling outside. Of things creaking and the sound of crying.

I paused as I could hear the crying, and blinked my eyes confused. I listened to it in the dark. It sounded like someone young, but still older than me.

My granny was asleep. It didn't sound like her anyway. But the reason why I knew it wasn't her was because I could hear her snoring loudly. Another sound I didn't like here.

I heard the crying voice call through out the house then.

"...h-hello...?"

I froze. It sounded like... no, IT COULDN'T B-BE...

But it sounded like her so much.

"...h-hello..? Little girl..?"

I began to shake and cry myself in terror. I looked out my open door from my bed, shaking there in utter fear as I saw white light illuminating down the hall. I said back in a scared beg.

"GO AWAY!"

"Please... can... you hear me...?"

"What do you want?!" I cried, tears splashing down my cheeks as I was so afraid and upset. The voice seemed to be shaking too in it's words and it said to me, slowly.

"Please come out... please..."

I shook my head quickly in fierce rejection. "No! You're not real!"

"Please... p-please..."

I began to shake, and shiver. I got out of my bed, and felt my little feet hit the cold wooden ground. I walked out towards the hall, standing just at my door as I looked at the light in the distance coming from the living room.

"P-please..."

I swallowed, scared. Afraid. But wanting to see her again... wanting company in this scary house... which this voice should be making scarier... but it was her.

Someone I knew.

Well... who I thought I knew...

As fictional... suddenly becoming so much more.

I entered into the living room slowly, but took a frightened step back when I saw the static screen on the television.

And Rainbow Dash just sitting there in the static... by herself, her cartoon eyes filled with tears, as she had been crying.

But she had seen me, and she said quickly as I began to run away.

"Please... wait!"

I froze. And turned around. I looked at her, my chest going up and down in heavy breaths and I said in a quaky, scared voice.

"You're not real..."

"Who are you..?" Rainbow asked, smiling a forced kind smile and I stumbled back more towards the door. Rainbow's big eyes opened wider and she begged, "PLEASE! J-just... I won't hurt you... I can't anyway."

She tapped the glass of the television, and I swallowed, taking a small step back towards her, so confused.

"See... I'm in here... you're out there."

"You're not real! You're not real!" I begged and Rainbow just sighed, looking down to her hoofs... and muttering.

"I... I know..."

I sat down nervously on the lounge, keeping my distance from her. But she continued, slowly. She looked right into my eyes as she said this.

"But... somehow... I am... now..."

"N-no..." I said, shaking my head in fear. "You aren't!"

"But... I heard a voice today... I saw something. I suddenly saw light. I saw you... I'm real. I'M REAL!"

"Okay...!" I said in a scared cry, my voice breaking up in my tears and she asked me, her eyes angry now as she demanded this.

"Now tell me."

I swallowed, looking at her.

"What. Is. Your. Name."

I shook as I sat on that couch, and only looked at that cartoon pony's ruby eyes. Not knowing what to say but finally the word came out my mouth.

"Anna..."

Rainbow just stared at me, still crossed. She look at me for a a whole minute, the two of us keeping quiet before she finally said.

"Now... tell me this... Anna"

I swallowed, listening. The space between us was so far yet so small, as the whole room glowed of the white static light that was coming out of the TV.

"What did you do?"

Chapter 2

"N-nothing!" I said, my voice shaking afraid.

Rainbow Dash just stared at me, her magenta eyes still piercing into my own and she finally said slowly.

"If you did nothing... than... WHY AM I REAL!?"

I shrunk back on the couch, her angry voice scaring me. I didn't mean to make her real... I don't even think I knew how to do that. Maybe it was the TV? It was really old.

"I don't know, Rainbow Dash..." I said eventually. She just stared at me, her eyes swelling more pony tears around them, and I continued, still afraid of this conscious cartoon. "I don't know how you are real now. Maybe... maybe it was the telly...?"

The blue pony sighed when I said that, nodding her head a little reluctantly.

"I was hoping it wasn't that..." she said back sadly. A tear streamed down her cheek and she looked at me once more, before turning her body around slightly and looking at the white static that surrounded her.

"But... but... shouldn't you be happy...?" I asked, my voice quaky and afraid to ask this pony anything.

"Should I be...?" she responded, not looking at me. She wiped her cheek with her hoof roughly, and folded her wings together closer. It was clear she wanted to fly but was stuck in that tiny static space, not able to move at all.

"Yes...?"

"Thanks, kid... but no... I'm not happy..." she finally said.

In a flash of lights from the TV, that lit up the whole room, I looked to see she was gone and all that was left was the white static that existed on it own.

"Rainbow...?" I stuttered, so confused. Why had she disappeared? Where had she gone? I stood up, creeping up to the television and tapping the glass screen. When my finger tip tapped it for the third time, lost in why there was only nothing, the TV switched off by itself and I stiffened right up. I let out a little peep of a scream, before running back to my room and throwing the covers over me.

I lay in my bed, my body frozen and stiffening up. Not moving, not even blinking. Until I forced my eyes closed and soon darkness came.

I dreamt of wild things that night. Yet none of them were remembered when I opened my eyes again in the morning. I lay there still frozen on my bed. Laying on my back in exhaustion as I woke to the dawning day, and could hear humming around the house.

I stiffened for a moment, thinking it was Rainbow Dash's voice again from the darkness of the world before. But no, it was granny's.

I got out of my bed, and looked around. The house was dusty and cold... even in this heat. I thought wood houses were meant to heat up quickly?

I pulled my curtains and the blasting sunlight burned my eyes as it exploded into the room and lit every inch of it up.

I rubbed my blue eyes in pain.

After I had gotten dressed, I crept out of my room and stood nervously in the hallway. I looked back and forth, before straight on to where the living room door was. It was still ajar from last night.

The humming could still be heard, coming from the kitchen, and I sighed as I walked away, through the dining room to the old woman.

Granny was over the stove, stirring something in a pot. She turned when she heard my small footsteps and looked behind her to see me.

My blonde hair was in tangles around my shoulders and down my back and she just laughed a little at the state at me. And my slightly bloodshot eyes.

"Did you get enough sleep last night missy? It's twelve o clock in the day."

"It... it is?" I said in a peep. She nodded her head, giggling a little and got a scoop from a dish rack to her side. She scooped up some of the sticky white goo she had been cooking, and I watched, wide eyed as she plopped it into a bowl. I stuck out my tongue, not liking the look of it and she said with a giggle.

"It's porridge, silly."

"Porridge...?" I said disgusted. I suddenly tightened up in myself, afraid I had insulted but Granny just laughed.

"Yes. Porridge. Good for the heart." she said with a little wrinkle of her nose and she slid the bowl down the kitchen counter towards me.

I waited a second, before sticking my finger in and tasting it. It tasted like sticky clumpy goo.

I swallowed it down. I knew I had to eat it, no matter how much I didn't want too.

I obeyed sadly, and took it away.

Though my mind was lingering on Rainbow Dash, the whole time I ate it.

X

After I had finished the yucky goo, and had gotten dressed into normal clothes- A pretty yellow dress with white sleeves- I went back into the living room and stood at the door, just staring at the television in the distance. The room was alive with creaking sounds, and the beaming light from the blasting sun outside. I took a few steps towards the TV. Walking on the wooden floor in a way that, if I made one bad misstep, I could fall right through and die. I reached the screen, and pressed the on button... but the strangest thing happened.

The TV didn't switch on.

I skewed a confused look, and pressed it again.

"Come on, TV..." I mumbled to myself. I looked back and forth, in case anyone was watching and whispered into it quietly. "Rainbow Dash...? Are you still there...?" I whispered even quieter. "Are you controlling the TV?"

I pressed the on button a few more times when suddenly white static flashed on the screen for a minute before a voice, a familiar pony's voice, screamed at me.

"GO AWAY!"

I stumbled back terrified, tripping over onto my bottom, and I looked up to catch a whiff of blue in the static, before the telly switched off again and all was silent.

I was breathing frantically in and out, looking at the grey blank screen and nearly had tears in my eyes. Didn't she like me anymore...? Was she not my friend?

I whispered to the turned off TV, standing up and slamming my little foot forward afraid. "Well, f-fine, Rainbow D-Dash!"

I had tears welling up around my eyes and I cried determined. "I thought we were friends! But c-clearly... we're not!"

I stormed towards the door when the TV flashed on again and Rainbow peeped out in a quick afraid voice.

"Wait!"

I spun around, and saw her looking at me, with a bruises on her body. I blinked confused and she only muttered, pain in her voice and tears in her eyes.

"You were hurting me."

"I... I..." I stuttered out, so confused.

"I felt jabbing in my sides, when you were doing something to the TV just then... and it was hurting."

"All I was d-doing," I said, swallowing down my quaky words and getting stable again. But feeling scared that I had caused her pain. "Was pressing the on button."

"It hurt." Rainbow said. She sat in that static... the dark bruises on parts of her body and I wiped my tears. I felt so bad just then and begged to ask.

"I-I... I didn't mean it."

"I know... just don't touch the TV... it hurts when you do..."

"Okay..." I said, confused. I was still standing at the door and she was still watching me from the screen... in pain.

"Anna."

I froze up when I heard that voice from behind me, and Rainbow's eyes widened, before the TV screen flicked off again. I swung my head around and up to see my granny was looking at me concerned and worried.

"Who were you talking to?"

"Rainbo-" I stopped myself from finishing my sentence, as my granny looked at me and she said to me, slowly.

"Who?"

"Oh... no one..."

"An imaginary friend, me thinks?" my granny said with a cheeky smile and I looked at her, my eyes wide and terrified.

"She's not imaginary!"

"Honey... maybe you should stay away from the TV..."

"N-no..." I said quickly, my voice shaking in terror at that. "I imagine my friend all over the house... not j-just in the TV."

"Really...?" my granny said slowly. Folding her arms and I nodded my head again quickly.

"Uh huh... I- I swear." I said, and nearly crossed my heart, but didn't... as I didn't want to lie completely and swear an oath on it.

"Okay." my granny said, with a wink and twinkle in her eyes. As if I was just playing imaginary games like an other little child she had known.

She looked over at the TV in the distance, and said, still with a warm smile on her face.

"You know it was your grandfather who made that TV, back in the sixties."

"R-really...?" I said, confused. She nodded her head with a cheeky giggle and continued, ruffling up my blonde hair with her old wrinkly hand.

"Yup, made seven of them... though they kept malfunctioning so... we usually had to stop using them."

"But this one is fine!" I said, flipping out nearly at the thought of granny getting rid of this one and of Rainbow Dash.

"Oh I know... well I don't know... see, I only bought it down from the attic a couple of days ago, for you to use... hoping it would be the lucky one that didn't malfunction." she looked at me slowly, as she asked suspiciously. "Has it been turning on for you alright this morning?"

"Y-yes..." I said quickly. If I told her Rainbow was alive in it now, and that she felt what the TV felt... granny might just get rid of it soon.

"Y'know..." Granny said to me, and I stared up at her, my pale blue eyes still wide and alert for whatever else I needed to know. "That TV is battery powered. Not the stupid electric powered ones people still seem to have. It can be taken anywhere... he made so it would take six A4 batteries. He was a genius."

"I guess so..." I said. I didn't know... my grandfather died before I was born. My granny was eighty-five and seemed quite happy in herself... but she had rarely ever spoken about grandpa before now.

"I just put it down here a couple of days ago to replace his last one. But if it plays up in the slightest... let me know... okay...?"

"Y-yep..." I said, my body trembling at the thought of the TV dying... and Rainbow... d-dying-

No... I mustn't think of that. It would be too scary... too hopeless a situation.

I couldn't be a murderer... if she died because of me.

"Well... go outside, and play. And please, Anna," my granny said, shaking her head with a cheery disposition, "Stop talking to yourself. You'll worry the neighbors."

"O-okay..." I said... my voice trembling under my own weight of pressure to be a good child and obey my grandma. I hurried out of the room, and just stood at the end of the hall, watching her looking into the living room and at the same thing I had been enslaved to with my curious eyes.

When she turned her grey eyes to look my direction, I squeaked afraid, and ran off.

I wasn't sure what to do outside... besides explore the forest more. I headed deep into it... but as soon as I heard a howl of a wolf echo throughout the mountain region, I froze right up and ran all the way home.

My footsteps were heavy in the speed of the terrified sprint. I skidded across the hallway floor once I had arrived in the door, nearly tripping over myself. I stumbled to regain composure and ran out to the kitchen to see my granny was drinking some tea and looking out to the blustering leaves on the trees outside.

"Granny! You have wolves!"

"Oh yes... be sure to not wonder to far from the house, Anna."

"YOU HAVE WOLVES?!" I said again in terror and she just giggled.

"They're just big dogs, Anna."

I nearly fainted when she said that, she looked at me with a wryly grin and I headed for the living area to drop down on the cushy couch and forget what I just heard.

But as I went to open the door, I found it was locked.

My eyes popped wide opened and I said to my granny in a weak scared voice.

"G-granny...?"

"Yes...?"

"Why is the living room l-locked?"

I could hear her steadying herself in the distance as she eventually came into the hallway and looked at me with an amused look.

"Why do you want to go in there so much?"

"B-b-b-"

"B-b-because...?"

"Because... I want to... sit down..." I half lied. I wanted to see Rainbow Dash again too.

"I think you need to stay away from that room for a while, Anna," my granny said slowly, looking at me with quiet, distant now, eyes.

"Why...?"

"I don't want to have to repeat myself, Anna." my granny said, crossing her arms and her eyebrows lowered dangerously. "I don't want you to get scared... I just want you to listen to me and trust me."

I looked at her, slowly... feeling the 'scared' approach me now even more than before.

"O-okay..." I obeyed, feeling really scared now. She smiled at me warmly.

"Okay... I have a nice cushy seat in the conservatory if you want to sit down. I go there to read books."

"Okay."

"You'll be allowed back in there. Soon."

"Okay..." I mumbled, my voice getting wimpier and wimpier, quieter and quieter with every time I said that word and my granny just winked at me. Replying quietly back.

"Okay..."

Chapter 3

I didn't know why my granny was acting so weird... so scary.

I hung around the house, not knowing what to do with myself. I would walk by the door every couple of minutes, trying to spy through the little keyhole but it was impossible to get a clear view into the room.

All I could see was the couch and a bit of the back wooden wall. I groaned out loudly, disappointed in this all.

Had my granny seen Rainbow Dash? Did she not like her? Did she think that Rainbow Dash was dangerous? I knew from watching the show My Little Pony that Rainbow Dash was one of the least dangerous fictional characters to come to life in a TV.

I decided to investigate this further. As it got late that day, the sun setting in the far distance, I waited till my granny had gone into her room for a nap. The moment I heard her door close, I quickly hurried to her handbag that was hanging on a chair in the dining room and scuffled through it with my small hands.

I felt something hard and smooth, cold like metal and I pulled out a batch of keys on a key ring. I smiled delighted at this. But the question quickly zoomed into my mind.

Should I be disobeying my granny?

What if she was trying to protect me? I just couldn't tell why she thought locking away my only friend was protecting me. It wasn't... it was leaving me lonely and afraid in a house that was already spooky enough.

I walked over to the living room and looked around the house for any noise or movement in case my granny caught me. Not a sound, besides snoring in the far distance. Granny's snoring still annoyed me, I stuck out my tongue, not liking that pig like sound.

I quickly shoved each key into the hole at different points in time, seeing which one would fit the lock. Finally I shoved the right one in and I quietly turned it. I could hear the door's metal blockage that was inside the door's handle, slide inwards and making a clunky sound. I pushed opened the door and whispered into the room, quietly.

"R-Rainbow Dash...?"

As I looked in, I gasped, when I saw-

-The television was gone.

I ran over to the cabinet and looked through all it's cupboards, and draws. The small chunky TV was no where to be seen.

Why would granny do this? Why would she take away Rainbow Dash?! My only friend in this wilderness? I had tears rise to my eyes in furious sadness.

They began to dribble down my cheeks, salty tears dropping off my chin and soaking into my dress.

After a few minutes, and when my crying session had come to an end, I locked up the living room and placed the keys back in my granny's hand bag.

That night felt so lonely. Again I found it hard to sleep. Granny had made me dinner of potatoes, with the meat being turkey this time. I hated turkey! That bird made a weird gobble gobble sound and looked gross. It made me think, while I was eating it that I would gobble like the turkey and I really didn't want such a stupid sound coming out of my mouth.

I lay in my bed, the wind howling outside as I could feel rain was lashing down outside. Even though the day had been quite clear from clouds, it had not stopped the blustery wind from blowing them in from over the mountains and because we were basically in a valley, it always seemed to pour down rain around my granny's land.

Though through the slamming sound of the rain hitting the roof and the wind blowing through the trees like a beast.

I heard the same crying...

It seemed fainter now... farther away and I sat up in the dark, whispering to who I hoped it was.

"Rainbow Dash?"

There was no sound, just more crying... I could hear it clearly now. But as I looked around I suddenly realized it wasn't coming from the living room. No. It was coming from above.

I let out a scream as I looked over my head, jumping under my covers. I peeked out in desperate fear to see the monster, but all that was above was a vent.

A vent? That led... to the attic?

I had never been in Granny's attic. Far too scared to make the trip. And why wouldn't I be?

Attics in scary movies always held monsters and serial killers. I was never allowed to watch these films at home, but when I went over to my friends' house, we often spied their older siblings watching horror films. I never slept the nights when I watched a scary movie.

I stood up and climbed onto my nightstand, reaching up to the vent and whispering afraid.

"Rainbow, are you in there...?"

"H-help..."

I had tears come to my own eyes when I heard that helpless sorrowful voice. I knew she couldn't hear me, as she seemed to have been saying this word for a while and I whispered.

"I'll help! I will!"

I went to the kitchen, lightning striking in the sky and lighting up the night outside as I got a tall stool from the kitchen and carried it, nervously, to my room.

I placed it against my wall, and climbed onto it. I felt like I was wobbling and that I was a terrible high height. When I looked down to the ground, it was like I was miles away from it when I was only three feet.

I pulled opened the vent and climbed nervously in.

I didn't know what had come over me.

Maybe because I wanted to help my friend. Maybe because this house was already so scary it possibly couldn't get any scarier.

I didn't know why I was climbing through a dusty vent.

It was pitch black in there. But I could see white flickery light in the distance and knew my friend was trapped in the attic for sure now.

I crawled through the tight vent, that I only seemed to manage because of my small size and pushed opened the one that led to the attic.

I climbed slowly out of the tight space to the more open one and could see moonlight was shining through a little rooftop window, letting in scarce light.

I coughed as dust was getting in my mouth. I suddenly felt something on my shoulder, and I yelped, scurrying back as I saw a large spider had crawled onto my back. It didn't look poisonous though, but spiders gave me the heebee jeebees.

I looked around for the white light I had seen and could see it in the distance, covered by a large dirty blanket.

I hurried over to it and pulled it opened, seeing underneath it, Rainbow Dash who looked bruised and battered.

When she saw my face, however, she cried out in sorrowful joy.

"Anna!"

"Rainbow! What happened to you?"

"She wouldn't stop pushing the buttons, and when I turned on the TV to stop her, she put me up here." Rainbow said upset and angry. "She said if I didn't behave she'd KILL me."

"W-what?!" I shrieked in terror. The moment I did I could hear lightning strike again outside and light up the room.

When this happened I suddenly noticed all around me... the strangest of things. Televisions... smashed to bits.

I gasped when I saw this... why would Granny have destroyed Granpa's old televisions? I thought she thought he was a genius?

I kept looking around the room, as light from Rainbow's TV showed me the whole area of the attic and I saw machinery, weird old technology... and then something caught my eyes that I could not ignore.

It was a giant metal cage... that seemed to connect to a machinery station. And on the station was a a square large box that seemed to connect by a long electric tube back to the cage's main floor.

I came over to it quietly, and saw an old book. I picked it up and read the cover that said.

William Cabe's patent for creating life from the screen.

I raised my eyebrows up high in wonder and fear of this as I opened the book up and quickly read about how this machinery brought to life whatever what was on his television screens. Not only that... but once the TV was put into that square box and connected to the cage, all one had to do was press the activate button... and...

"What does it say, Anna?" Rainbow asked, her eyes worried and battered and I turned back to look at her. My blue eyes were panicky. I didn't want Rainbow to die. And something told me those other TV's didn't malfunction. No, granny had destroyed them when they had created life out of fictional characters. And she was going to try do the same with this TV.

I hurried over to Rainbow Dash, and with struggle in my step, picked the TV up.

"What are you doing...?" Rainbow asked desperately fast, and I just placed the heavy TV into the box. I pushed it in, and Rainbow looked at me terrified. I ran over to the machine station and slammed my little hand furiously onto the big yellow button.

I felt a small electric shock strike up my arm into my body and throw me back in agony. Suddenly Rainbow started to glitch and becoming shiny from the TV. I gazed my pained eyes up at her, as the TV suddenly burst opened in a white explosions and my eyes opened in terror.

"RAINBOW!" I screamed.

Tears lashed down my face, but I suddenly saw a rainbow light shine in through the giant tube and run into the cage. The cage suddenly had electrical currents of rainbow light bouncing off its metal frames.

I got up on my hurting legs, watching in terror as I watched an electrical being form a blue body, with rainbow hairs sprouting out it's head and forming a rainbow tail as well.

A second later all went dark except the last thing I saw look at me which was bright electrical magenta eyes.

I stood in that pitch blackness, my body trembling and shaking with fear and horror. Until I heard a voice... as clear as day... as real as can be.. say to me.

"Anna...?"

I looked up, and saw when lightning flashed again from outside and lit up the room... a blue pony with wings... looking at me.

She was as real as day.

I nearly screamed at the sight but I felt Rainbow Dash burst out of the cage and run up to me in the dim light to cover my mouth with her hard furry blue hoof, saying quickly,

"Be quiet."

I stiffened, she felt soft... like she had fur now... but she still had the proportions and height as in the show. She was smaller than me, but not by much, and she could fly.

I noticed this quickly, as to reach my mouth to have stopped the scream, her wings had spread opened into a hover and after I seemed to not make a sound more, she landed with a thud to the ground and stared at me annoyed.

"What did you do?"

"I... I didn't want you to die!" I begged, looking into her large real eyes and Rainbow just looked at me upset.

"I know, I know... but... b-but I don't belong here!"

"But you didn't belong either in the TV!" I said, all teary eyed and Rainbow sighed, adding with a quiet breath out.

"You don't need to remind me of that, kid..."

I could see she still had the bruises on her skin... but they had faded a little. I smiled a little smile at this, tears running down my cheeks and she said to me, as she raised off the ground again and looked for a light to illuminate the room.

"I don't like the darkness..."

"I don't either..." I said with a scared voice, trying to keep close to the flying pegasus. She eventually found a switch and turned it on. A yellow ambient light flicked on and we looked around at the mess that was in the attic. So much machinery and inventions. My grandpa had either been a genius or mad.

Or both.

"What now...?" Rainbow asked me, looking into my eyes, determined to know what she was to do.

"Just... just stay in here... okay?"

"And with crazy lady trying to kill me?" Rainbow spat out, despising that idea and flew over to the window. She tried to push it opened and I panicked.

"R-Rainbow! Don't leave me alone with her."

"What's it like out there...?" Rainbow Dash asked, looking into the lashing rain, and suddenly she seemed to manage to pop the window open by it's hinge. When she felt the rain, she shivered at its touch.

She looked back at me, at my teary eyes and swallowed. She said quietly.

"I can't stay here..."

"You can't leave me alone with her. What if she finds out what I did!"

Rainbow just looked at me, and I knew there was pain in her eyes. She just whispered, hating the words as they left her mouth.

"I... I just... I can't stay here!"

She pushed opened the window fully and I saw her fly into the stormy weather. I ran over to the window, pushing it opened and getting my hair wet as it blew in the wind as I yelled terrified.

"RAINBOW DASH!"

She disappeared into the darkness... the last I saw of her in the night being the trail of a rainbow from her speed.

Chapter 4

I struggled to get back in my bed that night. I felt my legs slip on the vent's opening in my room. I nearly fell hard onto the ground, but my little legs quickly scraped against the wooden wall in panic before they hit the stool and steadied themselves from the shaking.

I was in my bed moments later, breathing in and out heavily to myself. I was really scared. My eyes felt watery from the betrayal of my friend. How could she just leave me?

But that's not the only reason why they were shining with tears. My granny had been hurting my friend Rainbow Dash all this time. Why? Why would she be like this? She was a monster! I never felt like I understood grownups, but I knew my parents would never threaten to hurt someone or KILL them. But granny was a psycho!

I felt terrified staying in this house with her here. But I had no where to go. The area had no coverage, no one around for miles and wolves just outside the door! I didn't know what to do and soon the tears came full force in my eyes and began slipping down my cheeks and dampening my pillow.

I cried until I could no longer stay awake and slept without even knowing I had fallen into unconsciousness as I drifted myself away into the blackness of nothingness.

When I woke it was like I choked on my breath. I looked straight ahead of me and could just see the ceiling over my head. The house was quiet. I turned over on my side and saw on the little metal battery powered clock the time was ten a.m in the morning.

I swallowed. I slowly got out of bed and found myself sitting down nervously by myself in the dining room.

My granny wasn't talking to me. I just saw her plop porridge before my eyes with an angry slam almost of the bowl. Little sticky moist porridge bits flung out of it as it hit the table and I looked my blue eyes up quickly, looking warily and inside terrified, up into hers.

"Anna. Eat."

The way she said this did not sound normal. Usually she had a coy way of saying things, like she had her own inner joke going on in her mind that no one got. But today, she sounded demanding. Angry. Like when she had locked the living room door and told me not to go in. Warned me.

I swallowed. I looked down to the bowl and looked at the white sticky mush of porridge. It looked normal, but I pushed it aside with my hand and her eyes shot open in a furious glare.

"I'm..." I said nervously, afraid to speak the words. "I'm not r-really hungry."

"Oh, but you must be." Granny said, almost sarcastic and I felt my body shiver. Like she was near to striking me.

"Uh uh..." I said, shyly... fear trembling under my skin.

My granny gave a haughty laugh and just stormed off into another room. I could hear her hiss under her breath.

"Ungrateful child... trying my patience... I'll get her-"

I didn't hear the last bit of what she said... but did she say... I'll get her?

Get me? Get me what? I looked down at the porridge and began to feel tears fill my eyes again. I knew that something was off about that porridge. It looked normal... but I just didn't trust it.

I couldn't.

Anything that looked like cloud vomit mustn't be good for someone.

I nervously got off my seat and wandered across the dining room to the door in the hallway, opening it and saying nervously in a peep.

"Granny-"

I stopped myself. I didn't think I should tell her I was going outside. She might not let me. She might try trap me upstairs. She might try and GET ME!

I gulped, my throat dry and my belly rumbling. But I dreadfully ignored my body's aching and begging for food and drink and stepped outside into the blinding sun and many trees.

I walked the path I had made in the grass around the trees from previous days out. It was shady and dry today, but I could still feel the dampness in the ground from the lashing rain from the night before. And Rainbow leaving me. Leaving me with her.

I saved her, and she left me to fight for my own survival.

I could feel the sky slowly blow clouds in from over the mountains in the distance. The mountains at the very top had snow on them, and their rocks were sharp and jagged that made up their terrain. The grass of these woods was long as the trees were deciduous with big wide spread leaves that tampered over my head from their high branches and blocked a lot of the warm sun from touching my skin.

Not that I minded that. My skin was fare, and too much light hurt it and made it go red. I had inherited my granny's bright blonde hair, my father had told me. Apparently granny had been quite a beauty in her younger days, looking like Grace Kelly.

My dad was brunette but, and so were his siblings. My mum was too, but my hair was the strange pro-oxide bright blonde.

I stepped on some trigs on the ground, snapping them and hearing the snap echo arround the forrest. I suddenly heard a little howl off in the distance and looked up.

I froze when I saw it.

In the distance, up on the nearest mountain, on a giant jutting out piece of rock, was a wolf. It looked straight at me, it's yellow eyes just staring at me quietly in the distance. And I swear! I swear to God, it licked it's muzzle hungrily!

I yelped and quickly turned in such a fierce swish as I ran back to my granny's house. I didn't know if the wolf was following me, it was too far away to see if it had paid me much attention. But one thing I had learnt from watching documentaries about nature is this.

If there's one wolf, there's bound to be others.

I slammed against my granny's door in panic when I eventually reached her house, too panicky to slow down my step and pulled the handle down in a yank.

Only to discover.

IT WAS LOCKED!

"Granny!" I yelled, yanking it down and up several times to rattle the door open, but my attempts were futile.

"Granny, let me in! There's wolves out here and one SAW ME!"

I couldn't hear anything over my hysterics, but as I eventually stood back from the door, looking for an open window- I spotted my granny's eyes looking at me from my room's window.

Why was she in my room?!

When she saw me catch sight of her, I saw her pull back instantly from the window, the blinds closing, and tears of terror quickly began to fill my eyes again.

I began to cry but while I cried I could hear footsteps walk quietly inside. They were steady and heavy, like every step they took was with caution and precise calculation.

They were also very slow steps. I knew my granny was old, but COME ON!

"G-granny!" I blubbered out, my eyes getting red and my nose stuffy. "P-please let me i-in!"

Suddenly I saw the letter slot flick open with her eyes staring up at me from it and she said to me quietly.

"Why'd you do it, Anna?"

"D-do what...?" I stuttered out, wiping my wet tear soaked face.

"You know what, Anna. Why'd you bring a cartoon character into the real world?"

"Granny!" I begged.

I suddenly heard a growl. I looked behind me and suddenly saw three wolves approaching me in the far distance. They had made a circle around me, cornering me at the door and I screamed so loud, the sound of my shriek spread for miles and miles.

"Granny! P-please let me IN!"

"No."

I felt like I fell off a cliff just then. More like was pushed.

"Granny!" I cried harder, hyperventilating as the wolves had saliva slipping down their frothing snarling muzzles. They were nearing.

"Why'd you do it, Anna?"

"Because she said YOU WERE GOING TO KILL HER!" I screamed and I looked at my granny, pressing against the door. "Just like you are GOING TO KILL ME!"

"You're right about one thing, Anna." My granny said, a quiet cackle coming out of her mouth, "But wrong about another."

"I am going to kill her."

My breath was lost when she said this.

"But those wolves are going to kill you."

"GRANNY!" I screamed, and the mail slot flipped closed. I turned back to the door and began shaking the door handle frantically.

Every second from that moment on felt like a life time.

First there was the closing step of the alpha wolf.

My hand shook down on the handle, tears flooding my face.

Then there was the crunching of the grass around their feet.

My eyes flashed back and forth, full of tears as I kept trying to force that door to open.

There was the beating down of the sun onto my skin... burning it and making the sweat that was pouring out of it entice the wolves closer.

Then I saw it. The final move of the alpha.

He put two feet on the ground, sizing me up, He licked the saliva off his muzzle, some of it flicking off onto the thirsty grass.

And then... he leapt.

And I screamed.

Chapter 5

The wolf's skull was slammed into the ground.

I looked up, my arms still blocking me from the attack but all I saw was a swish of blue.

I heard a girl's cry, but what I saw wasn't a human girl... but a pony.

Rainbow Dash had smashed her hind hoof into the wolf's head so hard from a dive in the sky that she had crushed it.

Only it's tongue hung out, the animal dead and Rainbow yelled to me.

"GET ON MY BACK NOW!"

"W-What?" I cried in a confused beg and she roared at me angrily, as the other wolves regained their senses from the sudden attack.

"NOW!"

I ran up to Rainbow and just flung myself onto her upright back. I could hear the door behind me suddenly opening, but that sound was drowned out in an instant as Rainbow burst into the sky, the sudden zoom terrifying me.

We just shot straight up, so high that we nearly reached the clouds. I was panting and breathing so hard as I clung onto her, my legs dangling in the air, and I cried.

"MY GRANNY TRIED TO KILL ME!"

The second I said that, a gunshot noise blasted throughout the mountain regions, and Rainbow screamed.

I looked at her, petrified when I saw a bullet had sliced through her wing, and she roared in agony as she began to fall a little.

I screamed my head off.

Rainbow however, roared a screaming bellow so loud, as she suddenly began to spark electricity, and a second later she was like an electric chair, and I was the one being executed.

She was glowing bright yellow with electricity, but it was running through my body, causing me horrific pain, and in a second the yellow bouncing hot sparks burst off her like lightning. I saw she was no longer bleeding, but my body felt like it had been frying. I swear my hair was sticking up at it's ends, but her wing was now healed and she began to soar in the sky with direct aim at the location she was taking me to.

All I could think however, as my little heart beat so hard it was near going to explode was-

RAINBOW COULD NEVER DO THAT ON MY LITTLE PONY!

I held onto her tightly and she just flew for a while longer, the valley so wide and big. I was too shook up to cry, too taken aback by everything to speak.

But she eventually said the first few words.

"You okay, kid?"

I was silent, my throat aching from the electricity that had run through me minutes before. I said, still frazzled, my voice weak.

"My granny... tried... to kill... me."

"Welcome to the club of who she's tried to kill." Rainbow said back with a sarcastic raspy voice and I just sat on her back, looking ahead at the mountains as Rainbow neared a cave in the distance.

"Why...?"

The pegasus listened as I said this, my breath barely there, and my tears no longer able to come out. My body was in pain all over.

"Because some people are just bad."

"But..." I said, so confused, and Rainbow began her descent down. "She... she..."

"I'm sorry..." Rainbow said to me, quietly, and she landed then on the hard ground of the rocky insides of a cave. She made a small grunting sound, indicating for me to get off, and I slowly obeyed. I swung my leg off her and stood just to her side, the pony looking up at me quietly before I dropped to the ground in near tears. But it seemed all my tears had dried up from the shocks of electricity running through my body from before.

Rainbow looked at me, and pulled an uneasy look, as I sat there, dumbfounded on the ground, and I asked confused.

"What?"

"You... I didn't think about what would happen to you when I lit up back there..."

"What do you mean...?" I peeped out confused, and she pointed down to my arms, I looked down too and could see that white pristine scars were running all throughout my skin, like lightning bolts of their own.

"W-w-w-hat...?" I began to stutter in terror, I was covered in lightning scars, and I lifted up my shirt to see that I had more of them running deep throughout my whole body.

Rainbow muttered.

"Your face... it's..."

"My what...?" I begged.

My... f-f-face?!

I tried to find a mirror or a puddle somewhere. I could hear a grumble of the sky outside as thunder could be heard bellowing through it, and the sky began to get dark as it past two o clock. The sun was blocked by ominous foreboding dark clouds.

"Its... cool?" Rainbow tried to reassure. I was standing up now and I shouted at her in anger.

"DON'T LIE!"

"You're right..." Rainbow said back, nervously, and looked at me uncomfortable. "But I'm sure it'll all fade."

"How could you do that?" I asked Rainbow, forgetting about my injuries for now and wondering about this new power she had somehow obtained. "How could you set yourself on electricity?"

"I think because... I'm basically made out of it..." Rainbow said back quietly and I cocked an eyebrow up, completely baffled by this.

"No, your made out of flesh and bone!"

"Well yeah... and whatever else came out of that TV and cage machine... which was...?"

Suddenly the images flashed back in my eyes. Of when Rainbow was being created in the real world, how she had been rainbow lights and yellow sparks of... of...

"Electricity...?" I said, my voice not even there, myself still so shocked.

"Yeah... last night when I escaped, I got hit by lightning... but it didn't affect me... I got scratches... but when I screamed in pain and my rage was built up, I burst into yellow sparks and I was healed again... like rejuvenated or something..."

"No, no, no..." I said in fear, wandering back and forth in the cave, and suddenly could hear the pouring of rain from outside, hitting the mountains and valley in the distance. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Pretty cool, right?"

"IS IT?!" I yelled, suddenly spinning around away from the cave's entrance and to the startled pegasus behind me. "That means you can never die!"

"Isn't that a good thing?" Rainbow said, confused, and slightly annoyed at that remark.

"My granny is trying to kill you, Rainbow!"

"Still?!" she said frustrated. "What did I ever do to that old hag?! Nothing!"

I began to hyperventilate again, and needed to step out of the cave a bit to get some fresh air, but when I stepped near the edge, I soon found I was on a rocky ledge, that was hundreds of feet from the ground.

"I can't breathe!" I said panicky, and Rainbow only looked at me, concerned and confused.

"Just breathe in and out through your nose."

"You killed that wolf!"

"I had to!"

"You're meant to be about friendship and harmony!"

"I'm more about saving little girl's butts!"

I began to want to cry again, but I was so dried up and dehydrated that I begged the pony just then.

"Please!" She looked at me worried, as she saw my red face and how upset I was getting. "Please just... g-get me something to drink... I'm... I'm so t-thirsty..."

Rainbow looked at me silently for a minute more, before sighing and looking back at to the heavy rain outside.

"Okay... I'll find something and get you water in it... I'm sorry for the scars and-"

"Just get me something to drink, Rainbow..." I begged and wiped my dry eyes, looking at her, in inner torment "p-please."

She nodded her head slowly and took one last look into the sky, then back at me, before blasting off into the dim wet sky.

I could see her rainbow trail leave off behind her, and I breathed in and out heavily, plopping down in exhaustion on my bum and just crying with no tears. My voice was sobbing from thirst and utter betrayal from my loved one.

Granny.

After a couple of minutes of sadness, I crawled to the side of the cave and leant against the stone wall. I closed my eyes in drowsiness and tried to sleep.

To rest. To regain all the energy I had lost and dispensed in the very few hours of my awakening this morning to now.

When I woke, it was because I heard a loud bellow throughout the cave. I tightened up, quickly looking ahead into the darkness.

What was waiting for me now? What else would try to kill me. I looked around quickly for an escape but froze when I saw the large beast approach.

A grizzly bear.

I screamed.

I quickly got up as it stood on its two big legs, towering over me. Its black eyes stared with hunger into my quivering blue ones.

I ducked just the moment it swung its paw's claws at me, scurrying in haste as I could hear a grinding sound as the sharp glassy claws hit the stone wall and scratched through it. I ran out to the cave's ledge, and turned around, seeing the bear approach me, back on all fours.

"RAINBOW!" I shrieked, not turning my eyes away from the monster and my yell rang throughout the valley.

I stumbled back as the bear grew nearer and I suddenly slipped on the cave's edge.

I fell, but grabbed hold of the rocky side of the mountain as the grizzly came towards me, looking around for it's meal. I began to cry, managing finally to slip one tear out.

I suddenly heard a young woman's voice call to me.

"Little girl! Little girl!"

I looked from side to side, before I saw a blonde pretty woman in hiking gear was climbing the mountain's ledge, and was only meters away from me.

"HELP!" I begged her and she reached out her hand to me.

I looked down at it, terrified, I looked into her beautiful eyes however, and how calm they were.

"Give me your hand!" She called to me, and I began to tremble, as I reached my hand forward but the bear slashed it's paw forward, scraping my hand that was clinging to the ledge. I yelped and let go on- screaming as I began to fall but the woman caught my hand and swung me across the scaling heights with a firm grip. She pulled me with all her might onto the mountain's side, and yelled.

"MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"

I looked at her, so scared, but obeyed, and we both began to step our feet hurriedly away from the cave till we reached a more solid flat ground.

I would've breathed a sigh of relief, but the moment of calm was cut short as the bear could be heard growling and roaring as it tried to scale the mountain itself. The woman however pulled a sharp knife out from her utility belt, and flung it at the beast.

It pierced its side, and the bear's eyes widened in agony as blood gushed out of it. It lost it's grip and stumbled backwards, before slipping its feet off the ledge, and plummeting into the woods in the deep below.

I was breathing frantically, angry, and upset, as I screamed.

"I don't like animals dying!"

"That bear was trying to kill you!" The woman said to me, and I yelled at her, furious as I looked for a way to escape back to the cave.

"It didn't know what it was doing!"

"What in the name of God is a little girl doing all the way up here?" The woman asked and I looked at her, so upset.

"Leave me alone!"

Before I could make a go at the ledge again and climb my way back to the cave, the woman grabbed hold of my wrist, quite harshly, and said.

"I'm responsible for you now, little girl... I can't be held accountable if I let a lost child die out here."

"I'm not lost!" I yelled at her, and she crossed her eyebrows low to her eyes, not believing me. "I'm with a friend!"

"Who?"

I suddenly remained quiet, afraid to say the words and she looked at me questioningly. I swallowed. I couldn't tell her, she wouldn't believe. She wouldn't understand.

But in the end I didn't have to tell her as a sudden familiar raspy voice shouted, the woman being pinned all at once to the ground by Rainbow Dash.

"Anna, WHO IS THIS?!"

The woman's eyes widened as she looked at Rainbow and the pegasus glared at her, waiting for an answer.

"Who. Are. You?" Rainbow demanded then, deadly.

The woman took a nervous breath and answered.

"Grace..."

Chapter 6

Rainbow Dash looked at her in distrust.

I didn't know what to say to this woman Grace. I mean, she saved my life... but I was always told not to talk to strangers.

It was getting dark as the sun began to split the horizon, and I looked at it quietly with my pale blue eyes... saying goodbye to the harsh day that was to be replaced by the cold blistering night.

The woman seemed to take the belief of a cartoon pony coming to life in our world well. She accepted our plausible answers to her questions easily and we just sat on the mountain's ledge, a fire being lit by the lady, but Rainbow Dash told me to stay by her side.

I had to tell Grace but.

"My GRANNY tried to KILL me! And Rainbow Dash! She's a SERIAL KILLER!"

Tears came roaring down my cheeks as I plummeted all my fears and terrors onto this young woman and she just gave an uneasy resistant look to it all.

"I'm... so sorry..." she said and Rainbow Dash just scuffed.

"No you're not. You don't even know us."

"No... but-" Grace continued and Rainbow Dash glared her magenta eyes over at her with a distant stare, "I know that what she did was just... just... PURE EVIL!"

"IT WAS!" I bellowed in tears.

"Especially to such a sweet little girl like you, Anna."

"Uh huh, uh huh..." I blubbered.

"She must be going senile..."

"Or maybe..." Rainbow Dash said in anger, nearly blowing steam from her nose in the cold that was starting to set hard upon us. "She's just a psycho bitch!"

"Language, pony!" Grace warned the pegasus quickly, and Rainbow pulled back a startled look at that demand.

"You can't tell me what to do..." Rainbow said to her coldly and Grace just frowned, lowering her eyebrows into a deadly brow.

"Watch me."

Rainbow looked at her a little suspiciously at this returned threat, and I felt her nudge off me a little, saying in silent words.

"I think we should get going."

"And go into another cave?!" I said, my heart quickly beginning to pound frantically and Rainbow just sighed, looking cautiously over to Grace and said to me again.

"I think we should..."

"Oh..." I said, looking over at Grace, and her warm kind eyes. For some reason I felt more safe around a human than a cartoon character, but I couldn't betray my trust in Rainbow Dash.

After all, she was the element of loyalty.

"Anna..." Rainbow said in a quiet demand for a response and I swallowed, nodding my head.

"O-okay..."

I got up as Rainbow spread her wings, getting ready to take me on her back and lift off but Grace quickly perked up in seeing our movement and said, hastily.

"Woah, you two aren't just going to leave me, ARE you?!"

"Yes..." Rainbow said coldly and Grace stood up. The fire flickered sparks into the night sky and blew across our feet warming them ever just.

"look... I know you two have been betrayed by someone close to you-"

"Y-yeah..." I whispered, tears rising in my eyes, thinking of my granny.

"-but you need more protection than just yourselves. There are wolves out here, bears!"

"We're more dangerous than any wolves." Rainbow Dash assured her and I shook a little in fear of the killing of more innocent animals just so I could survive.

"Yes... but-"

"Look, lady." Rainbow Dash said to her flatly. "I don't trust you. WE don't trust you."

I said not a word.

"We're leaving. Any adult out here could be dangerous, I've seen enough of your kind by just one example to know that most of you are bad."

"-But."

"No buts." Rainbow said, just staring dead cold at her, and said in quick quiet words to me. "C'mon..."

She nudged her head a little towards her back as she looked at me and I saw her furry strong back waiting to be sat on so we could take flight.

But the terror of being in the sky got to me, and the memory of the lightning from flying with Rainbow Dash...

To be honest I was scared.

And something about Grace just made her feel homely, motherly... nurturing... like she could redeem the humanity Rainbow Dash now so despised.

"N-no..."

Rainbow Dash's eyes nearly popped opened when she heard me say this and she looked at me, aghast.

"What, Anna?!"

"I can't fly with you..." I peeped, tears swelling around my eyes and Rainbow weakened in her approach when she saw my timid self. "I can't keep running into wilderness... I want safety... I... I trust her..."

"Anna..."

Rainbow Dash and Grace both said this at the same time and I just shook my head, tears flinging away from my eyes and I begged.

"Just... please... I want to be around people... you didn't protect me when... I-I n-needed you..."

Rainbow looked at me heartbroken when I said this but I knew she knew what I meant.

She had left me alone in that cave. She had left me alone with my grandma.

Was she going to leave me alone now... if I chose to stay with this woman?

Would she leave me like she had done so many times before...?

Rainbow just lowered her eyes to the ground, mumbling something barely audible but it sounded in so much confused hurt.

"Anna... I-I had to get out of that place..." she swallowed. She looked at me slowly and whispered with shiny eyes. "Alright. We'll stay."

"If you want to leave..." I said in a stammer, looking at her, with wet eyes of my own. "Then go, I won't make you stay."

"No... I..."

Rainbow looked back at Grace, who only looked at her with silent eyes and Rainbow just looked down to the flickering burning hot fire, how it chewed up the wood and would soon die.

"You promise you won't hurt us?" Rainbow said, and Grace opened her eyes, surprised to hear this.

"Of course not." she said so softly with warm eyes and Rainbow just stamped back and forth in furious strides before she looked at me and said.

"Fine... we'll stay."

"I'm sorry, Rainbow." I begged for forgiveness, and Rainbow just held her hoof out to me to silence me.

"It's fine, Anna. But we need to find a cave... the temperature is going to drop to minus in seconds time."

"Okay..."

xxxxx

We picked up a burning branch and used it to guide our way back to the cave where the bear had once been. I was terrified going back to that dark and dank cave, but we used the flaming branch as light as we traveled to the very depths of it to see if there was anymore dangers hidden in its chambers.

I sighed a heavy, quaky breath of relief when I found there was nothing in there to attack us and we watched the flame die as it starved on the remaining ash of the branch.

In seconds time it was just the three of us in the dark, but the stars from the world outside let in some light as the inky blue sky got illuminated scarcely by the suns billions of light years away.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Grace said to Rainbow Dash as the two of them stood near the edge of the cave and I watched in the distance.

I had tried to go to sleep as my eyes grew so dreary, but the cold was too much, even with Grace's sleeping bag she had offered me. I wasn't used to being outside in nature.

"It's better than being alone in a static TV..." Rainbow muttered to her barely, and Grace just gave a warm smile at her, asking.

"So... how do you expect to live in this world of humans..?"

"Is it a world of just humans?" Rainbow Dash asked, and I listened and watched from the darkness of the cave as Rainbow Dash's body was silhouetted against the dark blue sky.

"Well nearly... we've basically ruined the planet... well them... not me."

"You've played some part." the pegasus said to her, and her magenta eyes almost seemed luminous in the night. "There's no way you couldn't have."

"I'm not from their world..." Grace said in a sigh and Rainbow looked at her slightly confused as Grace said to her with a wink. "I'm from a whole other existence."

"Keep telling yourself that." Rainbow muttered and Grace just gave a laugh.

"I will. Cos' I know I'm am."

Rainbow just stared at her, and I swear she was trying to understand this strange being before her. It was like Rainbow was finding it hard to connect to anyone... even with me... I felt she just stuck with me out of loyalty for what I did for her... then actually wanting to be my friend.

"Yeah..." Rainbow said to her, quietly and turned silently away as she looked up to the sky of a billion stars.

Grace sighed, and stood up, walking into the cave and coming to my side. She must've thought I was asleep as she just shook me a little and I didn't make a peep. I wanted to see more of their conversation but I only saw her lean against the dark cave wall and call over to Rainbow in a kind voice.

"Not going to sleep?"

"Not in case that woman gets us."

"She's a frail old lady... she's not going to get you up here."

"You didn't see her."

"Please... for Anna's sake."

Rainbow just stared at her, an undercurrent of frustration running under her fur and she just sighed, seeing Grace's kind smile and muttered.

"Yeah... okay..."

She laid down at the ledge of the cave, her blue wings folding tightly to her body and her eyes shutting closed, tightly, as she tried to settle herself but I could see through my own dreary eyes that she was very high strung and stressed.

I saw Grace just keep an eye view on Rainbow Dash, and when I saw the pegasus start to settle into sleep, I began to feel myself drift off as well.

My eyes were so drowsy as I slipped deeper and deeper into near unconsciousness but I weakly slit them opened, barely in the moment, as I saw Grace stand up and approach Rainbow in a few minutes time.

I saw her stretch for something in her utility belt as she dared to pat the unconscious pegasus, and when Rainbow didn't stir from the touch but almost fell snugly into it... I heard her say.

"You're such a sweet pony..."

I smiled in hearing her say this, and watched with happy eyes as she stroked the fur of Rainbow Dash softly before drawing something from her belt that glistened in the moonlight.

My eyes... they widened.

As before them was the sight of a sharp jagged knife.

She tore it into Rainbow Dash. I screamed. She drove it deep into the pony's body, stabbing unmercifully over and over. AGAIN AND AGAIN!

"STOP!" I shrieked, pulling myself out of the blanket and tearing across the cave to her, but the bleeding pony was just kicked off the cave's ledge by the murderous woman's foot and she gazed at me with a bloodthirsty grin.

"Don't worry, Anna." she said to me in a soft voice as I landed on my knees at the cave's ledge in panic. I looked for the fallen Rainbow Dash but she was gone!

"I'll let your death be swift."

"WHY?!" I asked, my eyes pleading as tears fell down from them in heart attacking agony.

"Because there can't be more than one of us." she whispered to me. She suddenly ripped me up to her by my blonde hair and I screamed in pure torture at this.

"Remember," she said with a wryly grin. "Granny knows best."

I suddenly felt the knife stab into my gut and I coughed out blood a second later, as she kissed me on the cheek.

Before she threw me of the ledge.

I fell for what seemed like eternity when it was only a few seconds. In dire agony.

But all I saw was the woman in the falling away distance light up like a lightning bolt and bounce across the sky.

I gasped, about to hit the ground and come to my death.

About to...

But I wasn't dead yet...

Chapter 7

There was a slam. Something collided into my injured side just as I was about to hit the ground. I was caught and redirected in my landing by a blue furry body... my eyes only getting a glimpse of it. But I felt so weak.

I toppled over on the ground and just looked up to the dark starry sky above me. It had the infinite depths of space in it, and the blurry swirl of the cosmos... my eyesight feeling so battered and weakened in definition. My body more so than anything else.

I just wanted to see my mum... my dad...

"ANNA! ANNA!"

I imagined I could hear my mum shouting these words to me. I could see her with her brown long hair, smiling at me in the distance. She was on a hill, smiling at me, joyously.

"Mum...?" I said, worried. I looked around, sitting up and seeing I was on a hillside with white flowers and golden grass. "Where's dad?"

"Anna, you must get up!" she said to me, with a warm giggle. "Silly... you're not meant to be here."

"Huh...?" I said, confused. I looked around and saw valleys had fallen in on themselves, the sky pink and purple... the stars shooting across and fallen into the distance.

"Anna! Anna!"

It wasn't her voice I was hearing anymore. No, the voice was suddenly so much more hasty... panicky.

I blinked my eyes, and the blurry sky reappeared in my sight. I suddenly saw a blue pony's face look down at me.

Tears were around her magenta eyes, swelling in the corners and slipping down.

"Don't die! You stupid girl! PLEASE DON'T DIE!"

"R-rainbow...?" I whispered, my breath so weak and the pony looked at me, quickly in sorrowful hope when she heard my soft voice.

"Anna! You stupid fool! You're dying!"

"I'm what...?" I asked, and she pushed me up to a sitting position against a large boulder. I looked down to my side and saw my dress was stained with blood. It was soaked. I swallowed nervously, not liking this fact.

I was too drowsy to feel upset about it, more just annoyed and tired that I'd have to get a new outfit. This dress had been one of my favourites.

"She'll PAY!" Rainbow Dash just roared, as she glared her eyes back to the sky, and I followed where she looked, to see in the distance, a giant ball of lightning was hovering in the night in the far distance.

But that ball had something in it... or more... someone.

"Granny...?" I peeped, my breath not able to let out loud words and Rainbow just stood back on her four hoofs, getting ready to burst into the sky, but I begged her.

"Don't leave me..."

She looked back at me, worry in her eyes, and I could see... she really did care for me. All that showed deep in her soul was a remorse... a petrification, that she had let this happen.

That she had let a ten year old decide what to do.

And now how stupid she realized that decision was.

"I love you, Anna." she said, tears falling down her eyes, and my own eyes widened when she said this.

Like a mother, like a sister... like a friend.

She exploded through the air a second later, and I saw her body silhouette against the moon, as she looked at Grace who's eyes shot in her direction. The woman screamed before the two lunged at each other... and the whole sky lit up with so much light that it was like an electrical storm had been let loose from the heavens.

I watched from my fallen position as Grace zapped lightning bolts from her fingers at Rainbow and the pegasus sliced through the frying sky so fast she caused an explosion of a sonic rainboom before she collided into Grace, only to be flung away by a strength the woman held that I couldn't even imagine.

I sat there, helpless... Rainbow wasn't winning... the fight seemed like it would never end. The two swung attacks at each other from every angle possible, lightning blasted out of them from every side when they did get injured.

And here I was... bleeding to death.

But I was so angry... feeling so much fury in my body and furious tears began to build in my eyes.

I WANTED THIS TO STOP!

I WANTED HER TO DIE!

I WANTED TO SEE MY MUM WITH HER BROWN HAIR AGAIN, AND FOR MY LIFE TO NOT BE CUT SO SHORT BECAUSE OF HER!

HER!

HER!

HER!

Suddenly I felt it erupt in me, making me spring up on my legs as electricity burst out of me from the tips of my hair to the deeps of my body.

I felt the tiny little blood vessels reconnect themselves. I felt the agony of anger being replaced by bright yellow light as my hair glowed a golden it had never done before and I began to float in the sky...

Had I just died...? Was this my soul leaving its body?

A second later, I realized the pain had gone and I looked down to my hands to see the lightning scars from Rainbow Dash had faded... and that I... I was floating about twenty feet from the ground in a ball of lightning of my own.

I yelped frightened. How could this be?! I almost tumbled forward back to the forest below as the shock had overwhelmed me so much. But I stabled myself and didn't ask any questions.

I was Grace's granddaughter. I was the granddaughter of a person not from this world.

And I had inherited her golden hair... her blue eyes... and her blinding excruciating power to heal...

And the thirst for blood.

Her blood.

I knew it was the anger that had set me alight... an anger I had never felt before and never wanted to feel again, but I shot up to the sky so high above and hovered there in fury as I watched Rainbow and Grace fight for the other's life to be theirs.

I was flesh and electricity... but I knew those two were the very atoms of electricity compounded so close together to form bodies.

The images flashed through my mind just then. Of Rainbow Dash's creation into this physical world. How she had been just electricity with no form bouncing around in a cage before it had grouped together to create life.

And if electricity being bound together could create life... then electricity being unbound together could destroy it.

I looked around, the two fighting and ignoring my angry lightning state in the distance... and then I saw it.

A power line... where we kept the very strike and attacks the sky had to offer... where we kept the thing that gave us light in the dark.

I stabled myself a little as I tried to move forward... to control my movements in the sky. I quickly discovered that I had to pull myself forward by electric strikes out of me and I did this urgently.

I reached the power line and held onto the thick plastic wire, needing to snap it to let the electricity fly.

But I didn't know how!

I wasn't strong enough. I never would be. Rainbow suddenly tossed through the sky as she got shot by such a harsh strike of Grace's lightning, she couldn't keep her footing well.

"Rainbow!"

She looked at me, her eyes widening when she saw that I was alive... healed... shining.

"Anna... you're... you're-"

"Break this line!" I shouted at her and she looked at me lost.

"WHAT?!"

"Sonic rainboom into it and break it! I think I know how to defeat her!"

"Anna... you're..." she didn't finish her sentence as we both heard a scream in the distance.

"YOU!" Grace screeched. She blew up with such a loud explosion of electricity that Rainbow was flung further into the distance. I hung onto the wire terrified, but determined.

Grace quickly crossed the sky in raging bounces and I ducked her strike as she tried to tear me down with a quip of her lightning.

She floated there in light just feet away from me and I looked up at her, my eyes no longer needing to cry. To feel afraid. There was no point.

I was brave. I knew I could be brave!

"YOU'RE MEANT TO BE DEAD!"

"No!" I said and looked up, seeing Rainbow lunging through the sky with such speed the sound barrier was about to break. "But you will be! You evil WITCH!"

Rainbow smashed into the line, snapping it at the point of contact, and I saw the wire swing off into the sky as electricity sparked out of it. I swallowed, and pumped myself so full of electricity as I suddenly jumped up higher in the sky to grab the line and felt it sting me more than anything I had ever felt.

Grace just laughed and shouted at me.

"YOU STUPID GIRL!"

I felt my energy being drained quickly, the electricity in me being pulled into the line's power and I dropped through the sky.

I had to touch her! I couldn't be drained and let her not be touched by the only thing that could possibly work.

But my worries were quenched as Rainbow caught me and flung me at Grace, the line's opening reaching forward before it touched the woman's body, and she screamed as suddenly... she was in agony.

She grabbed me, trying to pull me away from her, but as we both fell through the sky, I tied the wire around her. We hit the ground, lightning still pouring out of us.

Grace screamed in my ear... my own energy getting sapped and making me feel drowsy.

"YOU EVIL GIRL!"

"NO!" I screamed at her and tried to get away... as I felt too much of my life force was being sucked away into the wire. Grace's hand clutched me tight on the arm, not letting me free.

"YOU WILL DIE!" she shrieked.

"NO!" I begged, and tried to get away.

Rainbow landed on the ground just before us and looked at me in terror. She quickly began to run forward to help me but I screamed at her.

"STAY AWAY, RAINBOW! STAY AWAY!"

Rainbow had tears in her eyes in horror... as I became weaker and weaker. But Grace's hand on my arm suddenly felt sparkly... felt like it was dispersing into bounces of light.

I looked behind me and saw her body glowing and being sucked into the electric wire. Her skin was golden... separating... becoming less of itself.

Being sucked away forever... being destroyed.

And my own electric power was nearly sucked out of me. And once it was gone... I knew I had to get away from the wire... unless I should die.

Within seconds of time, she was gone... the last that was of her was her hand that clung to my arm... still being sucked into the wire, and I tried to shake it off... moving away from the sparking of the electric line, but it held on tight.

Finally I yanked it off and threw it into the fire of the wire's hell that was the very lights that had saved me.

And she was gone. I took two weak steps away from the saving wire. Rainbow looked at me worried, before I realized I could no longer create electricity to heal.

I collapsed.

But she caught me in my fall and carried me on her back to a safer place.

The woods were quiet then... dark... isolating... but beautiful in that they could hide and forgive what we could never.

For they had been the only witnesses to the act of my grandma's destruction.

And I had been the saviour... the murderor.

The killer.

I had inherited her blood... I had had her power deep in my core my whole life until only seconds ago.

And now she was gone.

I closed my eyes as I lay on Rainbow's back, my arms swung around her in exhaustion... just wanting sleep.

But that wasn't the end to my story and my visit to my grandma's home in the woods. Rainbow opened up the door to the only house within a hundred miles.

She entered it with me... turned on the lights... and said.

"Anna... it's not over yet."

Chapter 8

"Huh...?"

That's all that came out of my mouth. My breath was weak and tired... I was too exhausted to think of the words that Rainbow had spoken and the pegasus just gave a huff out. Her body felt relaxed, and she just carried me to the living room before saying to me.

"Alright get off, you need to sleep."

I stretched my arms up, yawning and feeling drowsy. But I obeyed. I got off her back and went over to the couch. I lay on it, my body aching and feeling so sore and tired.

I looked across to the empty cabinet in the distance, where the TV had been days ago that had started off my whole adventure.

I stared across at the empty spot and only yawned. I closed my eyes.

~x~

When I opened them again it was still night. I could hear the birds outside twittering just the slightest. I felt a lot of my energy had come back, but wondered why the room was so dark and quiet.

I tiredly sat up on the couch and looked at the time to see it say six o clock. I didn't know what time I had come back to my granny's home at, but I felt I must've slept for only five hours.

I stood up and went to my room. I turned on the lights as I headed to my wardrobe to find a new outfit, but the bulbs flickered a little in their light, which spooked me. I got changed into a clean T-shirt and shorts, and put on new shoes and socks.

I called out nervously, "Rainbow...?"

There was no reply. I walked around the desolate house till I found her asleep on a seat just outside the door. Keeping watch I had guessed, and I gave a tired smile. I came over to her and shook her weakly, whispering.

"Rainbow..."

"GAH!" She yelped, shooting into the air the minute she had been awakened, and looked around cautiously for the intruder. She only sighed when she saw me look up at her, and she flew down next to me, giving a nervous smile and saying.

"You scared me. I... I thought you were her..."

"She's gone, Rainbow." I said quietly, trying to reassure of this fact and Rainbow only nodded her head quietly. Though somehow, I don't think she believed it in her heart.

"Come on..." I said to her, and waved my small hand for her to follow me. She swallowed nervously, and walked into the house till we reached the hallway and I pointed up at the string hanging down from the ceiling.

"Can you pull that down for me...?"

"Why?"

"I need to see something in the attic."

"What?"

"Please, Rainbow." I begged barely, not wanting to have to explain, and she looked at me, confused. Cautious.

She could tell I had changed after that final battle... that something in the core of me had changed and that I was a different girl to the one she had met only a few days ago from behind a screen.

"Okay..." Rainbow said to me quietly. She flew up towards the roof and grabbed the string with her teeth, pulling it down and the ladder to the attic, fell. I moved back just as it hit the wooden ground with a bang, and I looked up into the dark square entrance above. I took a gulp, but began to climb the ladder.

Rainbow flew in before me and scouted the area, cautiously, as I entered into the dark upper room. I looked around for a switch, but Rainbow quickly found it and turned on the light. The room looked messy. The destroyed TVs were still in the corner in the distance, the electric cage in place, and the books still on the desk with the information I sought.

I hurried over to the desk and looked through the books. The light flickered a little, all the lights in the house seeming to have dimmed a little since we had returned, and finally I found the book that was dated from the ninety sixties.

I opened it up, and read the words my grandpa had written when he had been alive and a young adult in the year 1967.

Something incredible has happened today. As I had just created my own television, it became static and the beautiful Grace Kelly I had watched seconds ago from the movie, spoke to me. She looked at me. She was alive behind the screen... and I knew I had to find a way to get her out.

I turned the page to the next date and continued to read on.

1968

I finally believe I have cracked the code to release my beloved from her cage in the screen. I had configured the settings to my invention "The Releaser" so I can connect the TV up to the it and let her become real. Become alive. Become finally mine.

1969

An odd occurrence has happened with Grace. She's discovered she can return to her original state and age of creation by exploding electricity. She's delighted by this, happy she can never die, but I fear the worse. It's not natural, and I have asked her to promise not to use this power. To grow old with me. She has agreed, but I can tell it is much to her reluctance. But if she is to fall pregnant, she now knows that activating this power could kill whatever possible baby we could have. So I believe her reluctance has been overcome with the desire to have children. I am happy about this, that maybe one day... we could start a family.

There were no more words after I had finished that page. I flipped the paper over to see photos of Grandpa's and Grace's family that had come from the years that passed. The babies all had my grandpa's brown hair, but I knew secretly now they possessed my grandma's power and electric blood.

I just couldn't understand why my grandma had turned so crazy when I had brought Rainbow into the world. She had just lost it.

Had she gone senile? Had she grown evil with jealousy and envy that she was no longer special and the only one? It could explain why she always destroyed the TVs when grandpa had created more life from within them... but still... I was just so confused by it all.

I noticed Rainbow Dash was beside me and had read the words with me. The pegasus looked up at me quietly and said.

"I'm sorry, Anna..."

"Why?" I asked and she just sighed.

"I'm sorry that she changed... became bad... that she had to be killed."

"But what if... she was always bad..." I said sadly, thinking about this and Rainbow Dash only stared at me, lost.

"Like you said," I said to her. "Some people are just bad... some people are just... e-evil..."

"Do you want to cry?"

"No," I said, and meant that. I didn't want to cry ever again. Though I would find myself crying later on that day when the sun had risen. And the tears wouldn't stop till everything had come to pass.

We came back down to the hallway below and I went to my bed, falling asleep again. Rainbow told me she was going to keep a look out again, and the pegasus sat outside as the night soon turned to dawn.

When I did open my eyes, it was finally ten in the day, and I got up, feeling all my energy had finally come back. I hurried out eagerly to the door just to see Rainbow was looking out to the sky from her seat. Her magenta eyes seeming sad and distant.

They just shone with a little water as she watched a plane go by so high up.

"Rainbow...?" I said.

She blinked her eyes softly and looked over at me with a sad smile, saying.

"Yeah, Anna?"

"What's wrong...?"

"I just..." she said to me, and got up from her seat by fluttering her wings. She landed down beside me and looked in my eyes. I took a few steps back, lost.

"I have to go."

I opened my mouth a little in surprise. I didn't understand why she was saying this.

"Why?" I asked, and she gave a soft smile, her eyes looked down to the ground. "Where...?"

"I don't know where... but anywhere there aren't humans..."

I didn't understand why she was saying this.

"Don't you want to stay in these woods...? You can live in the caves... there's fruit in the trees."

"And always be on the lookout for people?"

"There are not many people in these woods... you're more likely to come across animals."

"And be seen as just an 'animal' myself..." Rainbow said in spite and I looked at her confused.

"You are more than an animal."

"Probably your scientist, if they got wind of me, would want to put me in a lab and test me like a rat."

"Rainbow..." I said, sadly.

She looked up at me, and just sighed. She said quietly, as her eyes turned back to the ground and her voice was so weak.

"What am I meant to do, Anna...? What to do with my existence now...? What?"

"Stay here... with me."

"You are only a child... if you were an adult, you would be like them..." she whispered the next word that made my eyes widen, "Bad..."

"I'm sorry we live in a bad world," I said to Rainbow, my eyes getting watery. It seeming the only one who could hurt me now was that pegasus as she was all I had now in my life, to protect me... to look after me... to be a mother, a sister, a friend.

But was I really being a friend to her?

"Maybe you should go," I said to her, quietly, and she gazed her eyes quickly back up to mine, startled in hearing this. "Maybe if you keep on flying you'll find a place you can call home. Maybe you will be free from us. So go, R-Rainbow!" I said, teary eyed and she looked at me, lost. "Go and be free!"

Rainbow just stared at me, as tears were near falling from my eyes, and she scuffed a laugh.

"Anna... where can I go? I want to go... but... but like Grace said... humans have basically taken over this world... destroyed it."

"Go to Antarctica!" I begged her. I only wanted Rainbow to be happy. "Go to the Amazon or under the sea! Just leave me!"

I fell on my knees, crying pitifully when I had told myself I would not let anymore tears fall. Why was I still such a baby?! Because Rainbow Dash wanted to go away... and I wanted my friend to stay.

But my dad would be coming to pick me up soon... and then... what would he do when he saw her?

What would he do?

I felt Rainbow nudge me on the side as she approached me and indicated me to get on her back.

"What is it, Rainbow?!" I begged and she just smiled.

"One more flight... for old times sake."

I swallowed, but nodded my head and agreed. I got on her back and she flew off into the sky with me holding on tightly.

I looked down to the far below forest and watched as the sun hit against us, and showed us off to the empty woods.

I held onto her tightly, but I wasn't afraid anymore. I just wanted her to be happy with whatever she chose.

She eventually flew so high that I became a little worried, as I looked down to the ground in the distance and how it looked so far.

I held onto her neck tightly and I heard her only say.

"Without worrying about that crazy granny trying to kill me... it's... peaceful here."

I felt a little bit of fear rise in me as I looked at the ground so far below.

"But... it's not home... home to me existed in that screen... when I was nothing."

She suddenly dropped through the sky, and I screamed till she pulled up with a gust of her wings and flew back towards the house. She landed on her hoofs and I fell off in total terror.

"I just... I don't know what to do... I don't know where to go... to exist... when all it is is just... this..."

I sat there, dizzy on the ground. I blinked surprised when I heard a car driving up the dirt road in the distance and I yelped at Rainbow quickly.

"HIDE!"

She looked ahead of her to see the vehicle approaching, and she quickly flew into the woods... disappearing.

And I wished that I could say I saw her again after that... but... but I didn't.

I just wished I had known at the time... that that simple flight into the woods... would be the last time I'd see her.

But I had thought I would get to say my goodbyes. That she would remain in these woods for me to always find her when I sought her. But in reality... things can disappear so quickly.

I never got her answer. If she was to stay here... or go...

If she would exist with us... or apart forever.

I got up as the car approached and I quickly saw it was my dad's car. I hurried over to the parkway, and he pulled up.

He looked wrecked... tired, exhausted... and miserable.

"Anna, I'm back..."

"Dad!" I said to him and swung my arms around his waist in happiness. "You came back for me!"

"Of course...?" He said, slightly confused when I said this and quickly moved me away as he came into the house and looked around.

"Mum?!" He shouted, looking for grandma. I heard him shouting for her a couple of times and I just swallowed, afraid.

He came back out to me and asked confused.

"Anna? Where's your grandma?"

"She's... she's gone..."

I didn't know what else to say, how else to explain. He looked at me lost and I continued, a lie all I could answer with.

"She went into the woods a couple of days ago... and... didn't come back."

"What?" he said, his eyes becoming wide in horror and he ran towards the trees. He put his hands to the sides of his mouth as he screamed into the wilderness.

"MUM! MUM!"

I watched as it all happened so quickly.

We searched for the day, the police came... The area was looked over... she was reported missing... but all I cared about was Rainbow Dash... and where she had gone to.

If she was even still hidden somewhere among these trees... or gone...

Was she gone too...?

We stayed the night at my grandma's house. I looked out the window of my room in hopes of seeing that blue pegasus... but I saw not a thing.

I could hear my dad weeping in the guestroom... crying... and I didn't know what to do or say to him.

I didn't know what I could do.

I approached him finally when dawn came and he was asleep in his bed. I looked at him, worried, and shook him weakly. He stirred a little bit and I swallowed, scared.

But I had to say.

"Dad... she's gone... she's gone..."

He still had his eyes closed, his body worn and wrecked and I stuttered out, ashamed.

"Because of me... she's gone..."

I looked at him for a few seconds more, before turning to leave and stopped when I heard him sit up on the bed with awakened eyes.

I was at the door, and he looked at me quietly, whispering.

"Anna... how did you know she was gone?"

"Because... I-"

"I never even told you."

I looked at him confused, and he just sat there, his eyes agape, his body exhausted and him half confused and half asleep in his state.

"I just know... that she's gone."

He looked at me. He seemed not to know what to say before the words left his upset lips.

"I'm so sorry, Anna..."

"No..." I said back, afraid to say it, but continued, "I am, dad..."

He shook his head and lay back down on his pillow, shaking in his bed as he whispered to himself over and over.

"The treatment was just too much for her... she couldn't hold on for me... for you..."

I didn't understand what my dad was talking about. Grandma wasn't having treatment... she wasn't ill when I had killed her and I peeped out.

"Huh?"

"She loved you, Anna..." he only blubbered out. He closed his eyes and tried to fall back into unconsciousness. "Just know, she loved you..."

I left the room, a little shaken up from what I had experienced and only went over it in my head as I lay in my bed.

When he had said 'she loved me', all that went through my mind was when Rainbow had told me she loved me.

But now she was gone... without a word to say goodbye... to say sorry that she had to hide.

She had just gone so quickly and I missed her.

But who was my dad talking about?

~x~

I only realized the next day.

~x~

"You mother... is gone..."

I couldn't believe it when he said it to me. He had wanted to not tell me for the longest of time, but he told me the next day when he had brought me into the lounge room by myself.

"She's... she's dead..."

"How...?" I begged to know, "Why? WHY!"

I broke down in tears, falling to my knees and just cried in so much pain from this.

"She loved you, Anna..."

"IF SHE LOVED ME, WHY DID SHE GO?!" I shouted at him. WHY DID SHE HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE I COULDN'T!

Why did Rainbow Dash have to go!

Why did mum have to go!

IF THEY LOVED ME- WHY!?

"She didn't have a choice."

I knew he was lying. My mum had a choice! She could've stayed with me and not gone somewhere I couldn't follow. She didn't have to go to that hill, where the valleys collided and the stars fell from the pink sky. She should've let me stay with her there! Not told me to go.

"She left me!" I shouted, tears pouring down my face. "She left me and she's not coming back!"

"I'm sorry, Anna..."

He knelt down beside me and hugged my small body close to his. I tried to push him away, so angry and heartbroken, but my dad was stronger than me.

"I'm sorry..."

My tears dampened into his shirt. And I cried...

I never got to say goodbye to Rainbow Dash... I never got to say goodbye to mum...

And childhood left me that day... for as I got older... I wondered if she had ever really been in my life... Rainbow Dash... Grandma... my mum... for they all could've been the hopes of a girl growing up and wanting something more.

The unimaginable to happen... the bizarre and amazing to exist.

~x~

It was 2027.

I was twenty-one. I had returned back to my grandma's house as it had been passed down to us in the will, and I had moved back to reclaim back some of that imagined reality I had once thought was real.

The doctors had seen me have breakdowns in my adolescence, imagining I was hearing the voices of my deceased relatives... of a pony...

I had been diagnosed with psychosis.

Those four days when I had been at my grandma's house as a ten year old seemed so fantastical now that I went over them in my head. I lay in the guest room. Just alone in the forest by myself. In the dark of the night.

But I knew it had been real... I knew... it had been real.

I reached my finger up to the ceiling... and a small zap of electricity sprung forth from the tip.

I smiled... and whispered to myself.

"You were real... I know you were... I know you're out there still..."

And I'll find her... one day again...

I will...