Ponyville Box Of Chocolates

Ponyville was very quiet.
Trixie had been preparing, and advertising, this show for months. She had spent what was left of her savings....
And she delivered a fantastic show.

She was taming lions.
Jumping through fire.
Turning rabbits inside out.
Pulling rabbits from hats.
And tearing herself to pieces.

But not a single pony came.
She gave her show to the empty audience.
She knew full well that it was empty, and that it wouldn't get any bigger, but she performed all the harder for that.

All of the acts she had done so far were so intense that she hadn't even had a chance to blink.
Just as she took a moment, instinctively, to check the reaction from the crowd, just then she took and single moment to blink.
And she saw it.

She was back in the zone just as quickly.
Juggling ladders, knives, and her own thoughts.
If she stopped to close her eyes now she wouldn't be able to open them ever again.
She saw, but she didn't see, the knives dropping.
They all fell away from her, but without her really meaning for them too.
It would have been better if they hadn't.
Her performance was already ruined.
But moving on as if nothing had happened was the only way to keep herself from seeing them again.

She wasn't even juggling anymore.
She was moving like a perfect performer , but her hands were perfectly empty.
She was intently tracking the space above her, but the whole sky was perfectly empty.
She looked to the crowd again and she blinked.

Whenever she closed her eyes she could see countless ponies.
All of them with eyes fixed wide open.
Never moving.

"We're all watching you."
They would say.

"Yes, I know that."
Trixie would respond, all alone.

She looked at the sky and closed her eyes, and she saw them.
She looked at the ground and closed her eyes and she saw them.
She turned her back to the crowd and she closed her eyes, and she saw them.

She held her eyelids open, and she picked up one of her knives, and she started to....
And then all she could do was stare at that empty crowd.

And from somewhere.... she heard roaring applause.