The Story of Nothing, the Story of My Life

Chapter 3: The Reasons I Don't Drink

Once again Celestia's sun became a nuisance to my sleep as it woke me up early on a Saturday morning. I walked into the kitchen, now that I had the groceries, I could finally cook my own breakfast. I cracked open two eggs and scrambled them just like I made for my parents on Saturday mornings back at home. Oh crap! I had just realized, I had forgot to tell them that I arrived OK. I picked up my cell from it's charger and called my parents from Trottingham. Nobody picked up; I was just left the voicemail.

I began my voicemail, "Hey Mom and Dad, I just wanted to let you know I got here safely, got my dorm, and even already made some friends. Talk to you later, love you, bye." I hung up the phone. Shrugging I looked over the progress me and Ditzy had made with the model. It was almost done with the primary structure, all we had left was the pulleys and the tail feathers which were going to take more time, along with strapping a harness on to it and getting it to compress. I finished my breakfast and messed around with the pulleys, seeing how I would make the controls work. What I thought would work well was a dual armband, you know, one armband connecting me on the left and one armband connecting me on the right. The controls were fairly simple, extending the left arm and retracting the right would make the wings turn left, doing the opposite of left arm in and right arm out would make the wings turn right. Retracting both would cause the set to go down; pushing both out would go up. The final setting was to twist the two; this would slow down the model, making for better landings.

I could hear yet more students coming in to their dorms. I supposed the 4th floor was specifically for our year, anyways I got a little off topic there, next time me and Ditzy meet up to work on the model, the inner pulleys and levers were next on the list. Speaking of Ditzy, I heard a thump from her dorm, like she fell or something. I opened the door to the hallway and was greeted by another wall of confetti for the second time this week.

I jumped backwards and landed hard on my rump. I laid back and groaned. I heard a terrifyingly familiar high voice say

"Why does everybody do that?"

I screamed and scooted backwards towards the kitchen as fast as I could, there was no Twilight Sparkle to save my hide this time, and this girl was certainly going to be the death of me.

A girl, still dressed in pink by the way, walked into the apartment and stood over me with a smile, she spoke a mile a minute but I think I understood most of it until my ears started to bleed, joking, that didn't happen, I only wish it did. Pinkie Pie babbled for what seemed like eternity, "Hi! Remember me? I'm Pinkie Pie, and tonight at 8:00 I'm throwing a PARTY! It would be awesome if you could make it; I'm asking everybody else in the entire building! Can't wait to see you there, bye!" And with a pink blur and a miniature tornado, Pinkie Pie and the confetti were gone. I guess that explained the loud thump from Ditzy's room. A party, eh? For the entire starting class? I really had planned on not going until Ditzy ran into my apartment.

"Did you get invited to Pinkie's party? I can't wait, I'm so excited! Can't you?" I knew I couldn't upset Ditzy if she was looking forward to this so much.

I meekly responded with "Yeah! Can't...wait!" All that was going through my head was, 'I'm going to die! It's a deathtrap!'

With Ditzy so excited I knew I couldn't refuse. She eventually ran happily back to her dorm to do some stuff for Monday's classes. Now, I don't know if you know but I don't drink alcohol, it befuddles our vision and sense, and I was going to need all of my sense and sanity if I was ever going to face Pinkie Pie. So whenever me and my friends went out to a bar, which wasn't too often but it did happen, I was usually the designated driver. While my friends had beer chugging contests, I sat back and sipped my soda.

Sighing, I pulled some clothes out of my duffel bag; I really needed to unpack that, and got into them. If everyone in the building was invited, then Twilight Sparkle and her other friends would also be there. She'd probably ask about the wings.

I walked over to my computer which was now on my desk after my "accident" and checked my email. Nothing really big on news, just spam, a YouTube update, and, oh what's this?

The subject line read "Angler Pool Headset Project Shut Down!" Instantly my stomach dropped along with every other internal organ. The Angler Pool project was a virtual reality gaming headset that was going to be the absolute step up in gaming. It was set to come out in around a year, but now it was cancelled? The rest of the email explained how one of their tests went wrong with the headset and the subject had a seizure and died, so his family sued the Angler Pool Company for millions of dollars and now they weren't allowed to make the headset, plus they didn't even have the funds anymore.

Damn, I was really excited for this. Not only was it virtual reality, every true gamer's dream, but it was a full dive virtual reality. Full dive was a real step up from your average gaming; it really felt like you were in that world, completely lifelike. Full dive was quite dangerous though, emotions were relayed through the game which sometimes gave subjects memory failure, amnesia. Also there was always the risk of an absolute mental breakdown, where the subject’s brain could be overwhelmed and fried. It was scary but this was the first time that someone had died or was even really injured, game developers were pretty cautious.

Sadly, now the console would never be released and every gamer would be devastated.

I weakly closed the laptop and sighed, Ditzy was a gamer too so it would seem logical to think that she also knew what the Angler Pool project WAS. I wondered if she would be as upset as I was.

I sat down on the couch so I could get some video game time in before my execution. I brought my laptop with its mouse over and played a few rounds of Team Fortress 2. With a few "Wave goodbye to your head, wanker"s I finally closed down the laptop and looked at the clock. My jaw dropped, it was 7:45. Oh man do video games make the time pass. I thought about putting on gloves this time, after I had almost revealed my disgraceful mark to Ditzy, but after many years of having to cover it, you got pretty good at it. It all had to do with bending the hand certain ways if you DID have to take your hand out from its cover. I walked out into the hallway and knocked on Ditzy's door. I heard footsteps approaching and the swung open to reveal Ditzy Doo in a yellow skirt and a gray shirt.

She spoke but I didn't hear anything, I was mesmerized by her beauty. She tilted her head, which made her go all wall-eyed. I stuttered "Sorry, what?"

She giggled and restated "Let's go then, shall we?"

"We shall," I laughed along with her as we walked towards the lift. The party was in one of the frat houses, and by the way, I didn't plan to enter any of them in the first place, frats are not my sort of thing. One of the guy frats had been so gracious to offer us the building, which was fairly large to be honest. It was 8:12 when we got there and were most certainly not the first ones to arrive. Music was blasting, you could probably here the bass a mile away, and there was cheering from inside.

Ditzy hurried her pace and exclaimed "Come on, this is gonna be great!" I hurried after her into the loud, crowded building. I dug my hands deeper into my pockets; I'm not a people person to begin with so this certainly was not my cup of tea. Once we were inside I could see Pinkie Pie, thankfully she didn't see me, behind the DJ table with the...well, DJ. The DJ had blue and white hair and wore purple sunglasses. She looked like someone that definitely partied a lot. I lost sight of Ditzy in the crowd and shrunk back on my own into a corner to find that it was already inhabited.

"Alex! What are you doing here-well I assume Pinkie really did invite the entire new class, but I didn't think that you'd really turn up", Twilight Sparkle grinned, beside Twilight stood a very meekly looking girl with long pink hair.

"Hi Twilight, Hi Fluttershy" I acknowledged. Twilight grin grew while Fluttershy whimpered and tried to blend in with the wall.

Twilight sighed, "What's wrong Fluttershy? Why are you being so weird lately? I mean ever since Thursday you've been acting, well I didn't think this was possible but, shyer." I was curious to this as well, as far as I knew, me and Fluttershy had never met before I arrived at Senheattle College, but something always threw her off when I was around. Fluttershy whispered something into Twilight's ear and Twilight's eyes widened in response.

"Oh! OK, Fluttershy," Twilight reassured her. She then turned back to me "Well, I'll talk to you later then Alex, see ya!" She waved and she and Fluttershy made their way through the crowd. I idled around a bit and then stumbled into the kitchen where my jaw almost hit the floor. In the middle of the kitchen was none other than Rainbow Dash, chugging an Adios Mother F**ker, with a crowd watching.

Near the counter was Applejack, deeply sighing. I could hear her murmuring "And I'm the one who has to take her home, oh Celestia." I stumbled back out of the kitchen, feeling disturbed and walked back into the large, main room. I was about to walk around the corner when I heard to people taking softly, in comparison to the volume of the music, that is.

"Well Fluttershy, you're going to have to say something to him eventually," It was clearly Twilight Sparkle's voice again. I recoiled immediately and internally lectured myself, it isn't right to eavesdrop.

But then again...

"I know Twilight but...but..." This voice was new; I'd never heard the soft and sweet voice of Fluttershy before.

"Just talk to him, Fluttershy, what could go wrong?" Twilight reassured her. I pulled away from the clearly personal conversation and walked back towards where I'd come from. Suddenly I heard a few footsteps and something bumped into my back, and I turned around. It was Fluttershy, looking down nervously but had her mouth open, like she was trying to say something.

"Hi Fluttershy, you alright?" I asked her.

She twitched a bit, like she wanted truly for me to walk away and to leave her when she still had a shred of dignity. I heard a quick "Hello," and Fluttershy looked at the ground again.

"Some party, eh?" I said to her.

"I don't really care for parties that much, unless you do, oh please don't get upset!" She stammered.

I chuckled a bit "Don't worry so much, Fluttershy. Yeah, I don't really enjoy parties that much; I'm not much of what you'd call a 'people person'."

Fluttershy looked relieved and timidly suggested "Do you want to go outside and get some air?"

"Ah, most definitely. Come on" I walked towards the door and stepped out onto the porch, Fluttershy followed. It was much quieter out on the porch, you could still hear most of the music and the occasional cheer but we could still talk at a normal voice level.

"So, what are you majoring in, Fluttershy?" I asked her.

"Medicine," she practically whispered "I hope to become a vet. What about you?"

"Computer programming, it's one of the only things I can find remotely interesting"

"Why's that?"

I sighed, "Nothing else seems to come naturally to me." This was partially a lie. I chose computer programming because it makes good money; I wasn’t good at anything, that's it.

"Well, that's because you found your special talent, what your cutie mark is. Like, for instance, mine is butterflies because they were the first animals I realized I could understand. What's your cutie mark?"

Mentally, I was yelling 'Shit!' but externally I smiled, hands still in my pockets, and said "Binary code," trying very hard not to break eye contact and look like I was lying.

"Alex-I-"

"Wait did you hear that?" I asked.

"Hear what?" Fluttershy questioned.

"Shh, shh, listen" I whispered.

There were sounds coming from one of the upstairs bedrooms that didn't sound, nice. It was mocking.

"You retard! You're pathetic!"

Both Fluttershy and my eyes shot open wide.

"That's not nice," Fluttershy scolded.

"Let's go see what's happening" I stated and I marched back inside, Fluttershy sheepishly trailing behind me. We walked to the source of the noise and yet again we heard more mocking.

"Why don't you go die!" Some guy yelled.

I backed up a few steps and kicked the door at the knob, screwing up the lock and swinging open the door. I then barged inside.

"What in Tartarus is going on in here?!" I yelled. Inside the room were two guys, both with short hair, one blond, one brown, both shorter than me. I also saw who the two were yelling at, a young lady with blond hair, a gray shirt, and a yellow skirt, Ditzy. This made me furious, so much bottled rage burst to the surface.

The blond haired boy yelled "Get out!" and threw a left punch at me. Without even paying any attention, I parried to the right, causing him to stumble. Then I kicked out his left leg, and as he was falling I grabbed the back of his head, I was still looking straight ahead by the way, and slammed it, face first, into the door frame. He gave a shaky yelp and crumpled to the ground. The second guy, confident, but a little hesitant pulled up his fists. My horn lit up and I appeared behind him, fortunately, he was a little slow and couldn't react fast enough as I grabbed his shoulders and teleported again.

Outside the window.

I dropped him and teleported back inside as he fell with a 'thump' into the bushes. My rage died inside me and my hands clenched and unclenched, and I shook my head, trying to get out the angry feelings. I cautiously turned back around to Ditzy and I was assaulted with a hug.

"Oh, Alex, thank you!" She cried into my shoulder "They threatened to hurt me and then" her voice suddenly became much quieter "rape me". She cried even harder as I patted her back. I noticed that she had a nasty bruise on her right cheek, the bastards had hit her.

I held her close against my chest and whispered, "It's okay, it's okay." It was a few minutes until Ditzy had finally calmed down enough pry herself off my chest. I realized that Fluttershy was still standing in the doorway, meekly. I also realized that there was an unconscious asshole in front of the doorframe, and another in the bushes. I decided to leave them alone; maybe when they woke up they would realize that they're assholes that just got beaten up by one guy.

Fluttershy shakily said "Are you okay, Ditzy?"

"Y-yeah, I'm okay, Fluttershy."

I walked both of the girls downstairs and Ditzy cheered up a bit. She drank a little bit, not too much, but enough to make her wobble a bit. And at about midnight, we all walked out of the building and back to the dorms. Ditzy leaned on me a bit as we walked back, more like wobbled for her.

As we were leaving, I swear that I heard the faintest trace of "Alright, Pinkie, yer gonna have to grab her legs, there."

I helped Ditzy all the way back to the dorms. She had leaned her head on my shoulder for a lot of the walk. It made me blush, luckily Ditzy couldn't notice. As we were heading back I brought up a topic that we hadn't brought up for a bit, the wings.

"Hey Ditzy, do you think that you could come over tomorrow so we can work on the wings, it's the last day before term starts." I asked.

"Yeah, I'd love to!" She grinned.

"Great" I approved. We walked back into the dorms with everyone else, luckily not as drunk as some of them, not mentioning any names *cough* Rainbow Dash *cough*. I unlocked and opened her dorm for her, then led her to her bedroom.

"See you tomorrow, Ditzy, good night," I waved.

"G'night," she echoed.

I walked back into my dorm and sat down on the bed. Some night eh? That is why I don't drink, because you end up as one of those drunks that blacked put back at the house. I hopped into some sleeping pants and a t-shirt and I fell asleep in minutes, contently dreaming.