Author's Note

No accent-reduced version dis time. Dis chapter is about Starlet Radiance and she barely has a Manehattan accent, so you will be able to understand the dialogues here without a problem.

Company L̵̡̓͐̊̈́̂̐͡o̶ͥͩ̀n̡ͦ̓͒ͨ̃ͩe͂ͬ̒lͥ̆̒̋͊̋̚͡i̎̚͘͝҉n̂̋́e̛͌̏ͬ̄̒͆͆s͌̌͝҉s̡̿͆ͫͪ͜

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Company L̵̡̓͐̊̈́̂̐͡o̶ͥͩ̀n̡ͦ̓͒ͨ̃ͩe͂ͬ̒lͥ̆̒̋͊̋̚͡i̎̚͘͝҉n̂̋́e̛͌̏ͬ̄̒͆͆s͌̌͝҉s̡̿͆ͫͪ͜

Starlet Radiance was sitting upright in her chair. She was quiet, not filling the diner with any sounds except for the incessant knocking on the table by her right forehoof. Starlet was staring at the window of the empty diner; stoically, patiently. Like something was about to happen outside, something that wasn't to be expected late at night in a deserted mall. Nothing was happening, of course, but the filly kept staring regardless. The sound of her hoof on the table rang hollow throughout the diner. It sounded eerie and creepy, but Starlet Radiance did not twitch.

It was after a while, maybe ten minutes, maybe twenty (Starlet had nothing with her to count the time, as the clock above the counter had mysteriously stopped), that Starlet Radiance gave in. She arranged her forelegs neatly on the table and placed her chin on them. Bored, she kept staring. The darkness behind the window began flickering the longer she looked at it and Starlet did not know whether it was her mind that tried to entertain itself to ease the crippling boredom or..... something else. The possibility of something else did not unsettle her, as one might have expected. On the contrary, she stayed rather calm about the prospect that something else might come to try and get her.

After a few more minutes, the flickering turned into swirling, then the swirling formed a picture, then the picture started moving. A mare appeared. Tall, with a pink coat and a dark, blue mane. Her appearance looked strict, because of the size of her body and the clothes she was wearing, but her face was graced by a caring expression, that felt mismatched in comparison.

More swirls appeared as the mare leaned over something. They formed a rectangular structure, with soft and comfortable curves at the top. The part of the structure that was directly under the mare's face looked like the faint outline of another face and as all of this got colored, Starlet Radiance recognized and remembered.

The structure turned out to be a bed and inside of it, Starlet saw herself. Her face was red and puffy, her eyes bloodshot and she was coughing loudly. The mare, who she now finally recognized as her mom, sat down at the side of her bed and brushed a gentle hoof over her sweaty mane.

“My poor daughter,” Starlet heard her speaking. “I'm so sorry. If only I had known you would become sick, I would not have went into the office today.”

The illusion of herself managed to form a smile between the coughs. She wrapped her tiny hooves around her mother's forehoof and nestled her face into it.

New tears ran down the face of the real Starlet Radiance. The filly got up from her chair, hastily, and staggered towards the window. “Mommy, don't go away!” she cried out. The movements of her lips were strangely simultaneous with those of her image, that spoke the same sentence.

“I'm here now, Starlet, don't worry.” Her mother gave the image of her a kiss on the forehead. It caused Starlet's heart to sting and she began to cry louder.

“Daddy will be home in an hour and until then, I will make some tea and hot soup for you.” The mare stood up and trotted to the other side of the bed, where she fiddled around with something. “I turned up the radiation for you,” she said. Then she turned around and trotted away, until she had disappeared. A second later, the bed and the image of herself fell apart and turned back into swirls.

“Mommy, NO!” Starlet cried at the now empty window. It burst in front of her, a shower of glass splinters raining down on the floor of the hallway behind it. Starlet twitched and stumbled back, fright appearing on her face now.

The glass was gone, but the swirls remained in its place. They wafted outside into the hallway, like they got blown at by an invisible gust of wind. Starlet still couldn't figure out if they were actually there, or just products of her imagination, but she followed them. Haste in her step, she climbed through the now broken window and stepped into the hallway. The swirls had a headstart, they were floating above ground level just at the height of the filly's eyes in a couple meters distance. Starlet Radiance hurried after them in a fast trot, as they began to take on a concrete form again.

They turned into solid, erect structures, with a poofy-looking extension at the top of them. Others formed much smaller structures, long in shape and each of them right next to one of the other manifestations. Starlet Radiance began to hear sounds around her, singing and laughing of other foals that got interrupted by the occasional excited squeal. More swirls appeared and the mare with the pink coat and blue mane, her mother, returned into Starlet's view. The swirl at her side took on the form of a stallion, his coat of a turquoise color and his mane a fiery red.

“DADDY!” Starlet cried as loud as she could, but the stallion did not look up at her.

He was sitting on a bench, his wife closely held at his shoulder. He kissed her mouth tenderly, which she redeemed with a passionate and comfortable sigh of pleasure.

“DADDY!” Starlet's voice rang out again. But her lips hadn't moved this time. In the distance, the swirls had formed a playground. Once more, Starlet saw herself. She was standing at the start of a long slide, waving ferociously. “Daddy, Mommy! Look what I can do!”
The parents looked over at their daughter, smiling gratefully.

The picture of herself above the slide waved one last time, then she suddenly flopped onto the floor, gave herself a push and slid down, face-forward and on her belly. She squealed and squeaked from joy all the way down. At the bottom, she jumped off elegantly, pinwheeled in the air and landed on monkey bars at the other side. She turned around, her hooves not once slipping from the strut she stood on, and threw her forehooves into the air. “Tadaa!” she shouted over to her parents.

“Oooooooooh!” her parents voiced their astonishment from their puckered lips. They sat up and clapped their hooves together in awe, giving their daughter a bombastic applause.

The illusion of herself bowed down gracefully, bathing in the applause, then the entire scenery vanished all of a sudden and the mall around Starlet Radiance was just darkness again.

Starlet gulped and her body started shivering. Unable to stay on her hooves, she sat down, then covered her face. “MOMMY!” she shrieked, loud enough to produce a resounding echo that seemed to reach through the entire mall. Her tears soaked the coat on her forehooves.

“DAAAAAADDY!” a second, longer shriek followed from her throat. “Why did you leave me alone?” she added then, her voice noticeably weaker. The distraught filly expected an answer. She hoped to get one. But nopony answered her question.

For a good amount of time, because of the crippling loneliness Starlet Radiance felt since this memory had flooded her mind, she was too weak to get back up. The swirls were still there, in the air around her, and they seemed to beckon her to follow them. But Starlet was lacking the motivation for anything that required more energy than crying bitterly and kept sitting at her spot, wetting the floor and herself with more and more tears. It wasn't until she heard something that called for her attention that Starlet Radiance finally found the strength to get back onto her hooves.

“Staaaaaaarlet!” she heard her name getting called. It was undoubtedly and unmistakably the voice of her mother again.

Albeit still crying, the little filly trudged ahead once more. The swirls were now far away and she could only catch a small glimpse of them before they disappeared behind a corner on the left side. Still too exhausted to run, she approached the corner in a slow tempo and with rising desire to catch up with the swirling, wild patterns.

“Staaaaaaarlet!” she heard the voice again, louder this time. Closer. “Starlet? Mommy is here for you. Come! Come and follow my voice, my sweet, little pie!”

Each word let Starlet's heart race faster, as her yearning became stronger and stronger. “Mommy?” she managed to ask as she had almost reached the corner, but it came out only weakly.

Having turned around the corner and looking into another hallway now, Starlet could finally see her mother again. She was entering one of the side corridors, the ones that led to the elevators and the staircases, and Starlet increased her tempo as she chased after her. “Mommy! Wait!” her voice rasped, still impaired from all the crying.

Her mother did not turn around, then got swallowed up by the darkness of the corridor. As Starlet arrived in it, she was greeted by nothing than this darkness. Her mother was nowhere to be seen and as she rasped another cry for her, she once again received no response. Starlet wiped over her eyes, rubbing old tears away while new ones came streaming out. She was close to collapsing again, as she heard her name getting called behind her.

“You can open your eyes now, Starlet!”

She turned around and found herself looking at another large scenery. It had become built up quietly behind her, while she had been looking for her mom. She saw herself again, sitting in the middle of many scattered gift packages. Behind her image towered a large Hearth's Warming tree and she could hear the crackling of the fire in the chimney at the left side of the illusion. The colorful dress she had put on for the occasion and the red ribbon in her mane almost made her look like a gift herself.

Starlet sniffed up and bit her lip, another fresh torrent of tears running down her cheeks, as she witnessed yet another memory, projected by her mind or maybe unseen forces around her.

She saw herself squealing and holding her cheeks in awe, with hooves that were even tinier than Starlet's hooves currently were, looking around and trying to decide which of the packages she should try as the first one.

“Open this one!” her dad said after a minute had passed without a decision. He put one of the larger gifts right in front of her image.

Eagerly, her younger self flopped on her flank and pulled the package closer. With zeal and a wild strength that seemed uncommon for a toddler, she ripped off the wrapping in large scraps. Mere seconds later, she had uncovered a large, blue package. Through the transparent front, a filly made of plastic and in the cheesiest pink colors smiled at her. To its left and right, it was framed by an assortment of dresses and other clothes, differently-sized brushes and several other accessories. White shutters were painted around the transparent plastic, making it look like the items could be seen through tiny windows.

The image of herself opened her mouth widely, shock and surprise written on her young face, eyes gleaming at the discovery. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, unable to find any words, then she suddenly jumped into her dad's lap, wrapped her tiny hooves around his waist and snuggled into his chest.

“Daddy, Daddy!” she shouted in glee. “Thank you, Daddy, it's the doll I wanted! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She rubbed her face into his coat, a few tiny tears of joy trickling out of her eyes.

Her mother came into view. She sat down behind her and stretched out her hooves, wrapping both her little filly and her husband into a tight embrace. Squeezed by her beloved parents, her image cooed and smiled in comfort while the real Starlet erupted into yet another round of sniffing, whimpering and crying.

“Just what our best daughter deserves!” she heard her dad speaking, his hooves grasped around the back of her projected image. He laughed.

The image of Starlet moved her tiny head and looked into her dad's face. “Am I, really? I'm really the best daughter?” Her eyes started gleaming even more.

Her mother turned her head slightly and the parents exchanged a grateful glance.

“Yes, Starlet,” her mother answered softly. “You are the best daughter in all of the wide, wide–” Her mouth stopped moving abruptly and the words fizzled out.

Starlet gasped. The body of her mother was completely still all of a sudden. She did not move anymore and neither did her dad. The color vanished from their bodies and they suddenly appeared dull and gray. Only the image of herself was still colorful and still in motion. Tenderly, her younger self kept snuggling into her dad's chest without noticing any change around her.

“Why?” Starlet whimpered. She sniffed up again.

Somewhere in the distance, she could hear a bang and, like it was a signal, the grey bodies of her parents dissolved into tiny flakes. Once more, it was like there was an invisible gust of wind as they got blown up into the air, until Starlet could not see them in the darkness above her head anymore. Only the image of herself remained for a little while longer, snuggling the air in front of her. Then it disappeared, too.

“Why?” Starlet whimpered another time. Her head started to hurt and her tear-filled eyes were barely able to follow the swirls in the darkness that proceeded further down the corridor and aimed for another corner.

“Starlet!”

She twitched as she heard the voice of her dad coming from the darkness.

“Come to daddy! You don't have to hide, it's just me! Please, come to me, Starlie!”

Cold shivers crept down Starlet Radiance's spine. This was a nickname only her parents called her with. She was sure, no, she knew, that she didn't tell any other pony about this nickname, not even her friends. But her parents weren't here, there was no way how they could be here and they had no reason to be looking for her at this place. Starlet was young, but she could put together that her parents searching for her inside the mall was impossible.

“Starlie!” the voice of her mother chimed again. “Come, Starlie, Mommy is here, Mommy wants to see you!”

Starlet looked around, now fear rising and fighting for dominance with her loneliness. Both feelings swirled around inside her.

“Starlie!” “Starlie!” “Staaaaarlie!” “Starlie?” “Staaaaaaaaaaaaarlie!”

The voices seemed to come from all sides and from all distances. Starlet could not figure out if the closer ones were echoes or really near her, but her fear gave her a boost and she trotted down the hallway, still following the shadowy swirls. The fear of the voices and the dread of what could be around the corner let Starlet alternate in her trotting speed, but she managed to reach the corner faster than the one before. As she went around it, she almost wished she hadn't reached it.

The entire corridor in front of her was filled with colors. Left and right, in the small side corridors, inside the shop windows, even on the galleries above her and on the ground, several scenes were playing at once. It looked like somepony had built up multiple, magical screens and activated them all at once. From her position, Starlet could identify different locations on almost each of them; there was her favourite playground, the living room of her home, her bedroom, other rooms in her house and pretty much every place in Manehattan she had went to with her parents in the past. And one thing was always the same, she was there with her parents and could see a happy moment she had spent with them.

Starlet did not dare to venture further. She shuddered as sobs, that caused her entire body to shook and tremble, rang out of her throat.

“Stop it,” she whimpered, voice stiffled by the tears. “Please stawp.”

Behind her, in the vast darkness of where she had come from, she suddenly heard a loud gasp, then somepony talking. “Starlie! Starlie, turn around!” There was some shivering in the voice.

The young filly did not listen. Instead, she screeched and jumped. Then she started galloping at full speed. The scenes rushed past her, most of them having become a blur, and her mind was too busy with her fear to reminisce about the ones she could still identify. Starlet ran to the end of the corridor, then took a sharp turn to the left. She tripped over a bench, almost fell, caught herself and kept galloping. By now, she had started to scream. She could hear hoofsteps behind her and nothing in her desired to stop and check if they were real or not.

It was when she approached another corner, that giggles and laughter filled her ears. Starlet twitched, but she was running too fast to stop before the corner. She skidded around it and her eyes widened at the sight in front of her.

Another scene was playing there, but something was different this time. She could see herself, sitting on one of the benches. There was another filly at her side, happily dangling her cream-colored legs over the edge of the bench. She could hear her bright, blue pigtails rustle in the silence around her every time she moved her head. Her parents were there, too, as it was to expect. They sat on the bench next to them and were talking, but not without sending the occasional glance into the direction of her image and the other filly. But unlike all the other scenes, this one did not show a different place.

Starlet noticed how the images of the benches she saw herself, the other filly and her parents sitting on appeared white and bright. The real benches, that were merely intimidating shadows in the darkness, were covered up by the illusions. Only a tiny bit of the darkness on them could be seen behind the images, not quite enough to make them look grey.

The cream-colored filly giggled again. It sounded muffled and now Starlet could see that she was holding a brush in her mouth. A set of watercolors lay to her left and a strong, thick piece of paper was on her knees. It showed paintings of trees and buildings. The lower part of the picture showed tiny figures, ponies that were cheering and clapping. The filly drew a few more ponies right in front of the trees and buildings. They were holding each other's hooves and bowed down with smiling faces, the other ponies undoubtedly an audience of some sort.

The filly took the brush out of her mouth. “Now it's finished,” she spoke in a low, timid voice. She put down the brush and placed it on the box with the watercolors. “I think that's how the stage should look. What do you think, Starlet?” She turned around expectantly.

Starlet could observe how her image clapped with her hooves. “Dis looks so great!” she cheered. “I'm sure she will like it!”

The eyes of the other filly started glowing. “Really? You really think so, Starlet?”

Her image nodded, wearing a confident smile. “I bet! She will choose your design once she sees it!”

The other filly squeaked from joy and she fell around her neck. “I am so glad you helped me, Starlet, thank you! I'll owe it to you if my design wins!”

Her image grinned widely and wrapped her hooves around the other filly. “I'll always help you, Pommy, no matter what!”

Starlet was staring at the scene for a few more seconds, shaking and crying stronger than before. Then she broke down right in front of the bench, to the hooves of her image who was still hugging the other filly. From tear-filled eyes, she could see how, once more, the image of her parents turned gray and stopped moving, their mouths frozen mid-sentence. It was the same for the pigtailed filly, frozen in the embrace of her image and her entire body gray. The gray bodies were reminiscent of ash that remained of burnt paper.

A sob left Starlet's throat and she averted her eyes. Looking down on the floor, she gripped her head with both forehooves. “Make it stop!” it escaped her. “Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it STOP!” she yelled and let her hooves come down on her head, while the bodies of her parents and the cream-colored filly dissolved into flakes and floated into the air. Her image remained, giggling happily and hugging an invisible filly, just like the last time. After a minute it disappeared, as well, and the corridor fell silent again.

Nothing could be heard anymore, save for Starlet's sobbing and the thumps when her hooves knocked on her skull.

The breakdown lasted for a couple of minutes, then Starlet's energy left her and she let her hooves drop to the floor. She breathed heavily while she tried to recover from the attack. Her eyes were dry now. They hurt as she looked ahead and, much to her surprise, found herself looking at the diner she had left earlier. The shards on the floor glistened in the moonlight that shone through a window. In her distraught state, and with all the sadness, fear and panic she had felt, Starlet hadn't noticed that she had been going around in a circle. It must have been half an hour since she left, she estimated, and now she was back from where she started.

Trembling, she slowly brought herself into an upright position. Her wobbling knees made it likely she would fall again, but Starlet managed to keep standing. Weak and tired, and exhausted from all the running and crying, she motioned back to the diner.

It was where she belonged.