All I saw at first was darkness. Not the chilling darkness that accompanies a sense of pain or confinement; those would soon come, but I wasn’t quite there yet. No, I couldn’t feel these things because that implies there are things to feel. And there wasn’t yet. Nothing. That’s probably the best way to describe it actually. This darkness was the kind of intangible darkness that acts as a filler for one’s perception of nothing. That was my world as I knew it: an expansive void of black, lacking simple existence.
And then I saw you...It didn’t happen in the magnificent flash of light and emotion that suddenly brought life to my world and I as if it were a fairytale. It just happened. One second there was the darkness and the next there was you. Although the singular feeling of my reality remained, just as darkness was all my world was, you were now all I could experience, I somehow knew this existence would be better.
The immediate presence of another filled me with a joy I had never before known. I began questioning the birth of this new life. Had I been rewarded for serving my time in that void of nothing? Would this existence also fade after a time had passed? It would surprise anypony how existential I went in my considerations regarding such a singular world. The world, however, then blossomed into so much more than singularity.
Still shaken by the gifts of sight and emotional awareness, I was taken further aback by the emergence of tactile feeling. Slowly but surely, I could feel my body come into this world. What started from my head curved down into a body, then looping together to create a complete figure. Yet I wasn’t done growing. I felt myself expanding as appendages and detail were added to my complexion. It wasn’t until these additions dawned on me did I once again focus on you. I knew then it must have been your doing. You were the one who gave me these parts. You were the one who started my life. You made me.
So I looked at you and took your own appearance in. You were so large in my eyes and yet you had the look of still being small. Eyes filled with wonder, a smile dipping across your muzzle, an adorable little horn that rested atop your head. When color set into my world, the pearl white pallet of your being immediately clashed with the dark black I had previously known. Your other colors, a complimentary pair of pink and a soft lavender, struck me as what I assumed was true beauty. My first ever consideration of the concept of beauty led to my second one. Did you make me beautiful? Did I look like you? The thought of this became very comforting to me as time passed by.
And time did pass by. How much, however, I couldn’t be certain. An eternity of nothing had left be with a very misguided sense of time. All I had to judge it by was you. You kept staring at me with a kind attention that I knew must make you special. I didn’t know if this continued gaze meant that not much time had passed or that it had been a while, yet you were still able to comfort me after so long because you are just that wonderful.
I wanted to touch you then. This became the first and only thing I’ve ever wanted. I wanted you to comfort me more. I wanted to give you a hug so I knew all of this was real. And I tried. I tried to reach for you. I tried to wrap my forelegs around you but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel you. All I could feel was the dry, prickly touch of paper. This was the one tragedy of my new world. I would never be able to ensure it was real with a touch.
Yet it was this despair that accompanied not being able to touch you that made me question what I could feel. I could feel my own hoof crunching against the paper, trying to reach you. The momentary shift of my focus from you to myself led me down a final path. Why had you made me? Who was I? What was I without you?
And that’s when I heard my name.
“Sweetie Belle!”
No.
“Are you in here, darling? I just wanted to make sure...oh.”
She saw you. What is she going to do to you?
“Why isn’t that a lovely drawing?”
She want’s you. She can’t have you. I need you.
“It is very nice, Sweetie Belle, but you’re going to have to finish it later; it’s time to get ready for school.”
No. No. No.
She wants me to leave you. She wants to take you away. But I need you. You took the darkness away and if you go away then the darkness will come back and I don’t want the darkness to come back and...and....
“Sweetie Belle...why are you crying?”
“I DON”T WANT TO GO BACK TO THE DARKNESS!”
...
Although my outburst surely caught her off guard, it remained perfectly warranted to me. Before there was you, there was darkness. And that darkness was now torture compared to the existence you’ve given me.
Don’t get wrong. There wasn’t pain. I wasn’t sad. I just felt...nothing. Sure I pretended to smile and gave a squeaky laugh to deflect anypony’s suspicions from time to time, but I was always empty. Even Apple Bloom and Scootaloo didn’t help. I thought for a moment they might, but I learned they didn’t understand. Their facades turned out to be real and although I kept up my ruse in their world, I detached myself from them in mine.
You made me. You made me happy. You made me see something for once that I cared about. From the moment I thought of you and saw you, you made me something out of nothing.
That’s why the sight came first; you made it into my mind before anything else. And the relief of another presence calmed me. When you began to come into this world, I began to feel. It began near my head and ran down my body. As your legs and nose and mouth and horn formed, those areas grew warm on my body. I think that’s why you ended up looking so much like me. You saved me. You were beautiful. And knowing that I looked like something beautiful filled me with even more joy. I didn’t care about beauty though. I cared about you.
“...Sweetie Belle...talk to me.”
She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. She had people. She had people to laugh with and to touch. I became gravely aware of how tight I was holding you in my grasp and yet I still only felt paper. Why couldn’t you be real? You made be happy and that happiness was real. So why couldn’t you be?
I knew though just why. You did make me happy. You did make me feel. But I couldn’t lie to myself. You didn’t make me. I made you.
Author's Note
This short little story an ode to mental illness popped into my head today so I knew I had to get it out there before I forgot. I know its kind of short, but I tried. Thanks for all the positive comments on my last story! Bet that's not something you'd ever think an Evictus would say.