This story starts with a tiny seed.
A tiny pit made out of longing that opens and blooms with time. It grows strong and tall until the bud finally opens, displaying golden yellow petals that mimic the sun. Yet there’s no place for the bloom to show off its majesty, taking up space and strangling the host from the inside. The stem grows, tangles on itself, and the flower has nowhere to go but out. First one petal, then two, until the whole flower is expelled from the tiny space of the host’s lungs, a forced outpouring of repressed emotions.
After all, flowers always seek the light.
When she coughed up the first petals, she didn’t think much of it.
Starlight figured it must have come from something she ate at lunch, some extra flower in her salad she hadn’t noticed. She'd been walking through Ponyville doing some errands, the summer sun beating down on her and warming her withers and flank. Then she heard a familiar laugh in the distance, and she was ashamed of how quickly she turned to see. She loved to see them smile.
Even if they weren’t smiling at her.
She ducked out of sight before they turned to see her, her chest aching as she expelled whatever nasty condiment she ate for lunch.
Starlight is busy with paperwork—specifically helping Twilight with paperwork—when her mentor casually mentions them in conversation and she felt a burning in her chest, making her drop the papers she was carefully stacking to hold a hoof over her mouth.
She coughed seven more petals and dismissed Twilight’s concerns, denying her fears that it may be something more serious. Starlight did this as much as to console her friend as she did to console herself.
Her attempts are pathetic, she knows, and reality crashed down on her that night. That night Starlight woke up from a dream she barely remembered, but it triggered something because her chest burned and her throat ached like she'd been strangled. Feeling the beginnings of nausea, she tossed the covers as she heaved and ran to the bathroom.
She barely made it to the toilet, emptying the contents of her mouth forcefully. Something long and waxy unfurled from her throat, sliding out in stomach acid and spit. She leaned against the porcelain of the toilet, panting heavily, eyes closed tightly as she caught her breath.
She opened them slowly and saw two long green somethings intertwined with the other in the porcelain bowl, too long to flush, so she teleported them away and flushed the toilet. Her stomach was empty, but there was a heavy sense of dread that weighed her down and didn't let her sleep peacefully the rest of the night.
Twilight’s library is massive. If there was an answer or a name to her condition, it had to be in there. Starlight made sure to wait until there was no one in the castle, knowing that if she poked around the medical section while everyone was there, it would raise suspicion.
She pulled out the biggest book she could find, an encyclopedia of magical ailments, and flipped through its pages. The letters were small and crammed together tightly in the pages, giving her a headache on top of her aching lungs, but Starlight persisted until she found it under the letter ‘H’ of the book and read the contents.
Her hoof pressed on the page as she read and stayed there for quite some time, wrinkling the page as she re-read the passage over and over, practically memorizing it by the time she found the will to close the tome.
The book slid on the smooth surface of the wooden table before it fell to the floor with a thud.
Starlight was too busy sobbing to see where it landed.
A few weeks ago Starlight found herself alone with them, finally, it was the perfect place, the perfect opportunity. The sun was setting over Ponyville and the dying light painted the town in hues of purple and gold. It was there that she told them about her feelings, coming clean and making it clear that she wished to be more than friends. Her heart was pounding, her legs felt like noodles, and above everything, there was hope, hope that they would feel the same. She desperately wanted them to feel the same way; she would gladly rip off her right leg for a chance for them to feel the same way she did.
When she looked up after a moment of silence, she found her worst fears realized.
“Oh,” they said nervously, letting the silence drag and Starlight’s dread grew. “...I…I’m sorry,” they finally said with sad eyes, their ears pinned to their head as they nervously played with loose rock on the ground. “I don’t feel the same.”
It was a disease, a disease born of one-sided love. The only cure was for the beloved to return the victim’s feelings or just let the flowers grow in the victim’s lungs until they die from asphyxiation. Starlight knows she isn’t going to be cured. She had already been told quite clearly that night, so all that’s left is for the disease to run its course.
Something easier said than done.
It hurt, by Luna’s stars did it hurt. She can barely eat without those stupid flowers pushing up her throat, her breathing became pathetic wheezing and there’s always more flowers and more petals and the pain of one-sided love.
Slowly but surely, the weeds took up more and more room in her lungs, slowly choking the air out of her. Her magic helped to keep them at bay but more seem to take their place, and Starlight gave up, coughing out full flowers stained with spit and blood until the air ran out of her lungs.
At last, she gave in. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t care.
I love them. They don’t love me.
They don’t love me.
They don’t love me.
They don’t...
Author's Note
Well this was fun. This is my first time entering a contest like this, all the other entries are amazing and waaaay better than mine. Please check them out in the community folder and COMMENT damn you! 
And yes I'm guilt tripping you to do so, because everyone worked really hard and its the least you guys could do. 
