Sunset after the Storm

“Having a good time, Lightning?” A voice spoke out from pitch-black darkness.

“What… who… where…?”

“Aw, don’t play dumb with me! You know perfectly who I am.”

“Opera? But… how… where are we? Why can’t I see anything?” asked Lightning.

“Well… let’s just say we’re about in the middle of nowhere,” replied Opera Songs with an air of playfulness.

“Opera, I am not joking around. How did we even get here in the first place?”

“Oh, you want to be serious? Well, I’ll answer your question then. It’s not a matter of ‘how’, Lightning; it’s ‘why’. You’re here because of what you did,” Opera answered, her voice turning from being playful to full resentment, even containing a slight tinge of malice.

“What? But… but I didn’t do anything. I did nothing to you, Opera, I swear—”

“What you did to me was the. Worst. Thing. Possible. You betrayed me and my trust in you. You hurt me, stabbed me in the heart. You broke me. And now… you’ll pay the price.” Opera angrily hissed, her voice overpowering Lightning’s protests.

“Opera, look, I’m sorry. I, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Look, I didn’t know what was going on—” Lightning stammered as he began to panic.

But then, Opera’s words cut deep into his heart. “Too late.”

With that, two hands covered in blood shot out of the darkness, clutching Lightning’s head with its claws. Lightning tried to back away but it was pointless. One hand held his face in place while the other reared back, preparing to strike with its sharp, pointy claws. The hand shot forward, heading straight towards Lightning’s eyes. Lightning had to do something. He couldn’t move. The only thing he could do was scream. He screamed as the claws reached his eyes—

“AAAAAHHHHHH!!!” Lightning bolted up in his bed with a scream.

He hit the light switch, which immediately turned the lights on to reveal the familiar sight of his bedroom. Lightning took deep breaths, relieved that it was only a dream and trying to get his nerves to calm down. He wiped his forehead. He was sweaty, no thanks to the dream. He felt a tear forming at the corner of his eyes. He didn’t care about it, though.

Suddenly, a knock came on his bedroom door. Lightning let out a surprised yelp.

“Sweetie, are you alright? We thought we heard you screaming in your room.”

Thank god, it was his parents.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. Just a stupid nightmare, that’s all. I’m okay, Mom. I’ll go back to bed now,” Lighting called out towards the door, still shaking from the nightmare.

“Okay, dear. If you need anything, just let us know, okay?” His mother replied from behind the door, worry still etched into her voice.

“I’ll be fine, Mom. I’m already seventeen years old. I can do things on my own now, okay?” replied Lightning in a more composed manner.

His mother let out an audible sigh. “Alright, sweetie. Sweet dreams.”

“You too, mom. Have a good night.”

As he heard his mom walk away, Lightning flopped back onto his bed and began smacking his head. “Stop it, stop it, stop it. It wasn’t your fault, Lightning, so stop blaming yourself.” But no matter how many times he said it, something in the back of his mind kept repeating Opera’s words: Too late.

He realized that it was too late to undo what had been done… or stop what had happened. All he could do now was to lay in bed and regret his actions.

As he lay on his bed, he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth. He crossed an arm across his eyes as a tear trickled down his cheek. He waited for sleep to carry him off to dreamland once more. But it never came.

Lightning stifled a yawn as he rubbed his eye. The morning coffee wasn’t doing its job properly. It wasn’t surprising, though, considering he had been drinking coffee every morning for the past few months as a measure to counter his nightmares and insomnia.

He tried to rub the fatigue out of his eyes as he headed towards the music room, his backpack and guitar slung over his shoulders. His head hung forward under his black hoodie, his favorite. He grimaced as he realized that his eyes with bands of dark skin under them weren’t going to wake up anytime soon.

As he neared the music room, his pace slowed. Something in the back of his mind seemed to hold him back from entering the music room. When he arrived in front of the music room, he put a hand on the door… and then lowered it as his body tensed up. He seemed to have lost the energy to push the door open. It was as if the nightmare had taken all of his strength away. For a moment, he wanted to leave, to back away from the door and go on with his day as if he hadn’t made the promise in the first place. His breath began to quicken slightly while his left hand started trembling.

But then he thought of his promise with Sunset. She was clearly delighted when he said that he would join the band, and betraying that promise wouldn’t be good for his relationship with her. Plus, who was he to stand his friends up? So, shoving his left hand into the pocket of his hoodie, he pushed the door open.

He was immediately greeted by a confetti cannon exploding in his face.

“Surprise!” Pinkie Pie yelled from somewhere beyond the cloud of confetti that obscured Lightning’s vision.

As Lightning staggered backward, spitting bits of confetti out of his mouth, his vision cleared enough to see that the girls were already in the music room waiting for him.

The next moment Pinkie Pie was speaking right in front of his face. “You’re late, Lighty! Can I call you Lighty? Cause, you know, it’s lighter than Lightning Storm! Lightning Storm’s a bit, you know, too stormy! Or can I call you Hoodie, ‘cause you’re always wearing a hoodie around? Anyways, I was wondering why you weren’t coming and was getting worried, but Sunset told me not to worry and that you will come eventually! And you’re here, so we can start practicing!” With that, she bounced back into the music room.

Lightning just stood there, slightly bemused. Then he shook his head and walked in, ashamed with himself that he even considered walking away when his friends were waiting for him. He also felt a bit relaxed now that he saw them smiling at him. He didn’t let either of his emotions show, however, and smiled back at them.

As he set his backpack and guitar down, he asked, “So… what are we going to do today?”

“Well…,” Rainbow Dash replied, “since it’s your first day in our band, why don’t you start with showing us what you got? You know, play your favorite song or something.”

“Uh… well…,” Lightning stammered.

“Well, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to—”

“No, I’ll do it. I was just thinking of which song to play,” replied Lightning.

“Oh, okay then. Take your time,” said Rainbow.

“Actually, can I borrow your electric guitar for a moment? I need it for the song I’ll be playing,” asked Lightning.

“Oh, sure. Here.” Rainbow handed him the electric guitar.

Lightning took the guitar and slung it over his shoulder. He took a deep breath and began to play a bass tune.

The girls immediately recognized the tune; it belonged to a duet song. Sunset began to sing the lyrics along with the bass and saw Lightning look at her, smiling. Her soft yet firm voice filled the female singer’s part perfectly, capturing every note and syllable as if she were the original artist.

As the male part approached, Lightning took over, pouring out the emotions in his words. Every syllable he spoke carried the grief, anger, and sorrow of the song and Sunset knew why he had chosen this song. The intensity of the emotions included in the song was something that nobody but he could reenact. While singing, he gestured to each of the band members, prompting them to join in. As the song reached its climax, the two singers sang in perfect tandem and finished the song together.

As the song finished, Sunset looked at Lightning, who was looking at her while having a wide smile across his face. Sunset smiled back, and saw it in his eyes; he was happy, right here and now.

“That was… awesome!” Rainbow Dash broke the silence between the two.

“Was it?” Lightning asked, sinking into a nearby chair with a slight grunt, cradling the guitar on his lap. “I haven’t played electric guitar in a long time. Might have been a bit rusty.”

“No, it was perfect. Like, twenty percent cooler than I could ever be!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

“Ah second her, sugarcube. What she said means a lot, especially comin’ from someone like her. You were pretty darn awesome, Ah gotta admit. The way you screamed your feelings out…,” Applejack added, a proud expression on her face, even though Rainbow cast her a look that said she was unsure whether to be thankful or angry at her farmgirl friend.

“Yeah… it was… kinda scary… when you let your anger out like that…. But… you looked cool, though…,” said Fluttershy from behind her hair.

Lightning chuckled. “Aw, come on guys, you don’t have to go to such lengths to make me feel good about it. I mean, I made some mistakes, and my voice nearly cracked near the end. How can that be called good?”

“Darling, the fact that you made mistakes isn’t important, as long as we didn’t notice it. Your performance was simply splendid, especially the way you translated your emotions into your singing. That was the best singing I’ve heard in a long time!” Rarity chipped in.

“Well… then I must be a good actor because I was acting with the emotional thing the whole time,” said Lightning, getting a laugh from the girls.

“Were you, though?” muttered Sunset.

“Sorry, Sunset, what did you say?” asked Lightning, a look of innocence on his face.

“Never mind, it was… it was nothing,” Sunset replied with a shrug.

Lightning tilted his head and gave her a questioning look for a moment, then gave the electric guitar back to Rainbow Dash. As he did so, the bell signaled that the start of class was ten minutes away.

“Oh shoot! I gotta go!” Lightning yelled as he bolted from his seat and picked up his backpack. “I’ll see you guys later. I can leave my guitar here, right?” asked Lightning, to which the girls responded with a nod.

“Okay, then. Oh, and, girls?” he called out as he stood in the doorway.

The girls turned to look at him.

“Thank you. Thank you… for everything. I needed it,” he said, smiling. For a second, Sunset thought she saw a tear in the corner of his eye. As she tried to get a better look, however, Lightning turned and ran towards his class.

“So… what was that about?” asked Rainbow Dash, clearly confused.

Sunset merely shrugged and headed to her class, staring at the direction Lightning had disappeared.

The days went on, while Lightning adjusted to his new school. He had several more practice sessions with the Rainboom and hung out with them a few times. During classes, he would actively participate, leading group assessments and answering questions. He could be comfortable, be himself in this place. Or so it seemed.

At times, he would be staring into the distance, deep in thought, a slight frown on his face. Then he would jump at the slightest disturbance that brought him out of his trance.

Every day, he would come to school sipping a cup of coffee, dark bags hanging under his eyes. When asked about them, he would simply answer that he “had a rough night”, to which nobody asked further.

Then, one day, during a practice session, after another round of playing a song, Rainbow asked, “Lightning?”

Lightning looked up. “Hm?”

“How are you so good at playing the guitar? I mean, you’re always more awesome than I am when playing the guitar!”

Lightning smiled. It was a nostalgic, sad smile. He stayed silent for a moment, deep in his thoughts, as if he was contemplating an appropriate answer. “Well… let’s just say an old friend of mine taught me,” he finally answered.

For a fleeting moment, Sunset thought she saw a look of pain in his eyes. Then it was gone. Sunset, not thinking much of it, merely shrugged to herself and continued to tune the strings of her guitar.

Everybody saw how he seemed to be adjusting perfectly to his new school. His friends, especially the Rainboom, were glad of it. They had caught a glimpse of the dark side Lightning had in his mind before, and the fact that he seemed to be leaving it behind made them happy. Sunset was among them, happy to see that her friend was content within the bright atmosphere of Canterlot High, free of the emotions caused by whatever dark past he had experienced.

She just hoped that it wouldn’t come back to haunt him.