"Fluttershy!" That voice again. "Wake up!"
She kept her eyes closed, until she was forced to open them when a light shone directly over her eyelids.
There was a small window on the wall before her. A figure stood beneath it; a pink pony.
"Pinkie?" she whispered, trying to walk to her friend buy realized she was strapped to a vertical board at the center of the room.
"Why, yes, hello!" Pinkie spun to face her with a big grin and drew the curtains. The sunlight filtered through the fabric, illuminating the cold room dimly.
"Wh-where are we?" Fluttershy asked hoarsely, relief from seeing her friend fading away. Was it still some sort of prank? She hoped so.
"An abandoned mental hospital!" Pinkie exclaimed. "Isn't it exciting?"
Fluttershy was never a fan of abandoned places. The only one she'd gone to in her life was "The castle of the two sisters"
"This place is huge!" her friend said, hopping around her. "When I discovered it, I knew I had to show it to all my friends! It's your turn now!"
"Alright, it's really nice," Fluttershy forced a smile. "Can you let me go now?"
"No silly!" Pinkie replied, as eager as ever. "There are so many fun things I wanna show you."
"Alright then..." Fluttershy mumbled, breaking into a cough.
"You must be thirsty." The pink pony picked something up from the ground and trotted over to Fluttershy. "Have some water."
Pinkie offered her a bottle but tripped on something and dropped it. It broke into a dozen glass shards just inches from the frightened Pegasus. A few of them injured her hind legs. She wriggled in discomfort and whimpered.
"Oh, clumsy me!" Pinkie leaned down and touched a glass shard which was still stuck in Fluttershy's skin. "Let me help."
She struggled to get a hold of it with her hooves, but instead of helping, she just pushed the shard further inside the gash so far that it was now impossible to take it out.
"Wait!" She shook her head, stepping back. "I have a backup plan for this."
She walked up to a desk under the window, picked up something and returned to her frightened friend.
"This'll help."
Fluttershy looked down to see her put a knife beside the injury. Its blade was already tainted by who-knows-what.
"Wh-where did you get that?" She asked shakily.
"Oh this?" Pinkie dug the blade in her flesh. "Found it in the kitchen here and decided to use it."
She proceeded to cut around the gash, ignoring Fluttershy's helpless cries and eventually stepped back. The cut piece of flesh fell to the floor with a sickening plop.
"Now the shard is out!" Pinkie pie stated earnestly. "Problem solved!"
She stepped over to Fluttershy's side, pointing to the pony's cutiemark with the tip of the blade.
"You know what's been bothering me lately?" She wasn't expecting an answer so she resumed. "What's the point of keeping the cutiemarks when we already know our talents?" She propelled the knife close to the mark. "I tried this on somepony else and she still had her talent."
Fluttershy had lost her tongue. She didn't know what to do. She guessed that the mental hospital had affected her cheerful friend. Pinkie would never harm anypony like this. She had to seek professional help. But what could Fluttershy do now? She tried to muster some courage and managed to find her ability to speak again.
"Pinkie pie…" before she could continue her sentence, Pinkie started hacking away at her butterflies cutiemark and all she could manage to let out after that was a shrill scream for help.
When both of her cutiemarks were sliced away, Pinkie put the knife on Fluttershy's stomach immediately.
"Before you lose too much blood, I have to cover your wounds." She elaborately cut out two patches of skin, reckless to Fluttershy's involuntary jolts and squeals. She even giggled over them to ignore them.
"I've heard if you're fully skinned, you can live up to three days." She informed happily, trotting to the desk to pick something up and returned with a sewing needle. "So the only dangerous wounds right now are the ones on your flanks."
She put one of the skin patches on Fluttershy's right flank. "I'll cover them up for ya."
Fluttershy couldn't form words anymore. She even had lost the ability to think. The only thing her brain was focused on was pain. She wished at least she could flail her arms, to defend herself but they were tied to the board and there was no way she could break free.
The next few minutes passed in silent whimpers as Pinkie sewed on the skin patches on the injuries. Fluttershy had averted her eyes and shut them to reduce the pain by blocking one of her senses. The needle piercing her relentlessly was enough to take her breath away momentarily.
When the agonizing procedure was done, Pinkie stepped back, grinning at her friend.
"Now we can take things slowly again." She put away the knife and needle on a small table close to Fluttershy.
"I wanted to show you something." she declared, vanishing in a dark corner of the room and emerged back after a while, carrying something with her. She slid it in front of Fluttershy.
"Look who's looking beautiful today!"
Fluttershy flicked her quivering eyes on what Pinkie pie had brought in and gasped.
"Rarity?" She mouthed.
"I know! It's difficult to recognize her since she looks wonderful now." Pinkie lifted up Rarity's body. Her eyes were gouged out and for some reason the brims of the eye sockets were sewn around. It made her look like a life-sized doll.
Fluttershy's eyes widened when she remembered the same thing had happened to Twilight and Rainbow Dash's eyes. She hoped Pinkie would do that when she was dead because there was no way she could endure that.
Something seemed off about Rarity. Fluttershy squinted to see better in the dim light and she wished she hadn't noticed it. Pinkie had sewn a shirt on the dead pony. Dried blood streams tainted the fabric, as if creating a pattern.
"I gave her a gift!" Pinkie smiled, addressing the shirt. "Speaking of which, I've made you a gift as well. You are gonna love it!" She put aside Rarity's corpse and disappeared in the darkness again.
Fluttershy shivered at the thought of what the gift could be. It would be something that matched her passion. It could be a taxidermy of one of her many animal friends or worse. She shook her head.
"Found it!" Pinkie shouted from across the room, her voice echoing through the area and sprinted back into Fluttershy's view.
She held up her hoof. "I made this while you were unconscious." It was a butterfly made out of felt.
"I wanted to turn it into a necklace. I ran out of time but I have another idea." She pressed it against Fluttershy's chest. "I can carefully sew it on there so you'll never have to worry about losing it."
"There's no need!" Fluttershy blurted out. "I can just take it with me."
Pinkie gave her a funny look and chuckled as if she'd heard a joke. She grabbed the needle with her free hoof and started sewing around the butterfly she'd crafted. She was careful to not push the needle in too much. It could hurt the lungs.
Knowing this, Fluttershy tried her best to not breathe excessively and tried to distract herself. She strained to conjure her good memories but all she could remember was the darkness of the room where she'd found Twilight and Rainbow Dash.
She let out a tiny squeal as Pinkie tied a knot, finishing the job. She started to feel dizzy, not sure she was passing out or out of energy. She knew she didn't have much time to live. The thought of her animal critters looking for her helplessly brought tears to her eyes.
"Come on Fluttershy," Pinkie said with a frown, "I thought you were happy to be here."
She cocked her head to a side. "Don't you like my gift?" She braced a hoof on the board next to Fluttershy's head and rose up to her hind legs.
"I don't wanna see you cry." She hoisted something up.
The glint of a sharp object caught Fluttershy's eye; a skewer. A tie formed in her stomach.
"I never wanna see anypony cry," Pinkie muttered, "so they leave me no choice."
In a flash she dug the object in one of Fluttershy's eyes. Without giving the poor pony time to overcome the shock and pain, she gouged the other eye, blinding Fluttershy. Blood oozed out of the eye sockets.
Fluttershy had a temptation to wipe it away though she was bound to the board, restrained. At this point even if she was released, she wouldn't be able to stand on her hooves. All the pain had drained her from any possible energy and now, she was breathing with difficulty.
"Alright I guess this party's coming to an end." She heard Pinkie say. "Thanks for joining. I feel a lot better now."
Fluttershy dropped her head feebly. She couldn't take this anymore. Her friend's voice, once bringing relief, was like a spear through her heart.
Just as the thought came to her head, she felt something piercing her chest, stabbing her fragile heart.
The last words she ever heard before losing her life were her friend's. "Goodbye... Fluttershy..."
Pinkie Pie left the knife where it was and looked down at herself.
Her pink fur was stained by blood in various spots. She walked to the door to get to the bathroom to clean herself up and stopped dead in surprise.
"Oh, Apple Jack," She giggled at herself, "I forgot you were here."
Apple Jack's hollow eyes stared back at her. Pinkie had put her by the door; in case Fluttershy had broken free to leave.
"Now that all my friends are here," she said pensively, running a hoof down Apple Jack's blonde mane, "maybe I should have a little party."
Pinkie carried her to Fluttershy and left the room to clean up and bring Twilight and Rainbow Dash back there. It took a while since Rainbow Dash was nailed to the ceiling but she managed to do it.
She put all her friends in a line and sat across from them.
"We're happy to have each other." She smiled bitterly. Something was missing. Her friends didn't look happy. They all stared back with that eerie void in their eyes.
She noticed something by the wooden board; Fluttershy's cutiemark.
"Oh, is it because I'm not like you?" She got to her hooves. They weren't smiling because Pinkie wasn't like them. She was so selfish to show herself off like that.
"I'm gonna borrow this for a bit." She took out the knife from Fluttershy's chest.
All this time a puzzle piece was missing from her life. Finding this mental hospital had brought a spark of joy in within her; something to share with her friends. But nothing had really gone according to her plans. Her friends weren't as excited to see this place. She'd tried her best to make them happy; forgetting that friends do things together. She'd found the solution now.
"Be like them." She repeated this over and over in her head.
Clutching the knife with determination, she placed the blade on one of her cutiemarks.
Author's Note
It's the first time I'm sharing one of my stories so the feedback is pretty important! I accept any criticism! leave a comment and thanks for reading!
