//------------------------------// // Darkest Day // Story: Friendship is tough // by Jos0511 //------------------------------// I'm back! I had a nice break from writting, but I'm glad that I'm back. Thank you guys for waiting over a month. Therizzen and Skwoogle for editing. Now I know you guys want to start reading but I have some more stuff to say. This chapter has swearing in it (as usual) so brace yourself for that. Also this chapter is darker then the others (And this isnt like the last chapter where I said it and nothing bad actually happened. This is dark, and if you want proof before you read go and ask my editors.) With all that in mind, you may now read, unless you already started and this was just pointless warnings. “Look at him he’s crying!” I blinked hard. I remembered that voice. It was from a long time ago, but that was my old bully Paul back in grade 3. I saw him and a few guys bullying some kid that had his face covered. I was confused, he should’ve been in college by now or something, why did he look like he is in grade 3 again? To my horror when the kid removed his hands I saw my own face. This was a memory that I had probably been suppressed. “Aww, poor little Seethe is a cry baby. Why don’t you go home and cry to your mommy!” Paul and his friends laughed as they started to push me around. “Hey! I thought I told you to leave him alone!” I heard a familiar voice coming from the edge of my memory. I saw the little me smile as Paul and the other guys ran away. I turned and saw Josh walking towards little me. “Big Brother!” the little me said as he ran to him giving him a big hug. I smiled. I couldn’t believe I forgot this memory. ‘Geez, those guys really did a number on you Seethe,” Josh said. He was inspecting the injuries I had received. They weren’t bad, a few minor bruises and scratches. When he was done he looked in the direction of Paul and his friends. “How many times is it going to take for them to leave you alone?” The little me shrugged. He went from crying his eyes out to not caring anymore, guess that was the effect I got when I had my brother around, nothing could hurt me. Josh patted my back. “Come on, let’s get you home.” The little me held hands with Josh as the two walked off. The scene changed and I was older now. I was at my favorite bridge, watching the traffic go by under me. I sat on the edge wondering how my brother was doing. He left a few months ago to do some training flying jets. My mom and dad were against it because they thought he wasn’t good enough for something like that, but I gave him the encouragement he needed to continue. We got mail from him now and again, saying what new things he had learned and how excited he was that he will soon fly a plane. My parents would get angry every time they read them and get mad at me for taking their “little boy” away from them. That day slowly came back to me though, as I saw myself answering a text. My eyes widened as I looked at the text, and I could only assume it was the one my father sent me. Your Brother is dead. That’s all it said, no come home quick or I’m so sorry Seethe, but… “He’s lying,” I said to myself, “there is no way he died, I’d know about it….” I didn’t sound so sure and that scared me for a minute. I decided to walk home to make sure he was lying. He wasn’t. After they talked to me about the message they got from the camp he was at, they said that something had malfunctioned while he was testing something in the air. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been to fix it before it hit the ground. I couldn’t believe what happened, Josh was gone? While I sat there feeling horrible my parents decided to unleash their anger. “Look what you did Seethe…” my mother told me. I looked up at her. “What?” “If you hadn’t convinced him to go then he wouldn’t have died!” she screamed at me. “It’s all your fault!” She cried while she was still screaming at me. “My fault?” I thought about it, I did tell him to go even when they said no. “You killed your brother! Are you happy Seethe?!” she yelled at me. “I…I didn’t…” I said in a small voice. I wanted my brother. “Honey, let’s not do this now-“ my dad tried to reason. “Why did you kill him?!” she insisted on continuing. “I didn’t…” I put my hands up to the side of my head, trying to block out her yelling. No, it’s wasn’t real. “Why didn’t you go instead! Your just useless around here, you don’t have anything to look forward to in life!” The voice didn’t sound like my mom this time. It sounded more like me. “Shut up…” I felt blood rushing to my head “Your just some freak who doesn’t know what to do anymore!” “I said…“ I inhaled deeply, “SHUT UP!” - - - I woke up from that nightmare, but the aftermath of that dream always did have some side effects on me. I realized that my throat was sore, and to my best guess I had been screaming in my sleep. I felt my face was wet, and guessed that I had been crying. What was worse though was the hole in my wall that I found my fist in. That dream always brought out the worst in me, because after that day I became more angry not only with my parents but with myself. I was surprised that no one had woken up with all that yelling, I guess they were all just heavy sleepers. I looked at the time. “It’s only 5:56 am…” I whispered to myself. I couldn’t sleep again after that dream, so I decided that since I went to bed early yesterday, Id get up early too. I got out of my bed and started to tip toe out of my room. I went to the bathroom and took a quick shower. Better now than when all the girls are awake, don’t want them to…never mind. I got out of the shower feeling refreshed. I decided that since I’m not going back to sleep I might as well do something for a bit before school starts. I went down stairs and grabbed a quick bite to eat so at least I ate something. I walked over to the living room and was going to watch some TV before it was time to go, but someone already beat me there. I almost sat on her but luckily I saw her rainbow colored hair before I sat down. “D-Dash?” I asked as quietly as possible. She didn’t stir. I realized that she was asleep on the couch. She probably slept walked and ended up lying down on the couch. I smiled at how peaceful she looked. I saw something in her hand and was surprised to see it was a picture of my family. It wasn’t the best family picture, my brother and I couldn’t sit still. I guess she wanted to learn more about me and my life, which I found a little odd. Right behind that picture was something that made me shudder. I don’t know how she had found that picture, but I’m hoping that she hadn’t looked at it. I grabbed both pictures and stuffed them in my pocket. “Maybe you weren’t sleep walking,” I said to her as I patted her head. She smiled a bit. I saw a blanket on the floor and covered her up. I turned to go back upstairs but saw the calendar. “April 16th.” I felt a wave a guilt and sadness wash over me. Today was the day, the day my brother had died. I let that sink in for a few minutes. Today I would have to visit his grave, and I’ll have to avoid talking much to everyone, because today is the only day where I couldn’t control my anger. I looked back at the sleeping Rainbow Dash. “I’m sorry, but today you guys might not like me.” - - - I left a note for them saying that I have some stuff to do today, so I’m not going to be here when you get up, meet you at school. I didn’t want to leave them alone, but I was afraid. If they saw me at my worst, they might think I’m another jerk they met, and I didn’t want that. I walked over to my Brothers grave since I had time to kill. I stood at his grave thinking about what it would’ve been like if I hadn’t pressured him into going away. “He’d still be alive.” I heard my father’s voice inside my head. “We would be a happy family again.” This time it was my mother’s. “You’d still have a brother.” my own voice said. “Shut up,” I told all the voice inside my head. Already the anger had nested inside of me. I noticed the time and completely forgotten about school. “I’ll see you later bro.” I walked towards the school. Today wouldn’t be a good day, I could already tell that. I might snap out at anyone, and I’m afraid of who will take the heat. Hopefully it would be Steve, if I snap on him he’d think twice about picking on me again. On the other hand if I snapped on Kevin or any of the ponies-turned-human…i’d be a monster. My thoughts were interrupted when my cell phone rang. It was my dad. I had a good feeling what this was about. I opened my phone. “Hey,” I said plainly. “Don’t forget to visit your brother’s grave,” He said. Again no ‘hi how are you’, or ‘how have you been’. “I already went.” My tone was getting angrier. “Oh, we though you forgot,” He said. I heard my mother in the background say something about me always doing that. “At least I’m here!” I started to snap. “Where the hell are you?!” “Hey, calm down it was a joke,” “Calm down? Calm down?! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve heard form you guys? Since you guys left five months ago!” I heard ruffling on the other end as my mother took the phone. “Seethe, we’re trying to enjoy our vacation. Don’t use that tone on us,” She said in that bitchy tone of hers. “Fuck you!” I yelled into the phone, scaring some seniors who were walking past me. “What did you just say to-“My mother tried to say before I hung up on her. I shoved the phone into my pocket and stormed off towards the school. I couldn’t believe them! They called me to remind me to visit my brother. I’m sure they forgot. I heard my phone ring again, and saw it was my dad again. “What?” I said, trying to control my anger. “Seethe, we called the house earlier, but some girl picked it up. She said you were out. Why is there a girl in our house?” my dad asked. My anger quickly turned into panic. Crap, they answered the phone?! “Sh-she had nowhere to sleep last night, so I offered her to stay at my place.” The second those words left my mouth I knew I was an idiot for saying that. “You let a girl sleep over at our house?” I heard my mother again in the background, saying a bunch of swear words and calling me immature. “She had nowhere else to go!” I tried to reason with them. “Seethe you didn’t…” he let that trail off, unfortunately I knew what he was talking about. “No dad, I didn’t do that.” I felt my face turning red. “Ok ok. Well this Twilight seems ok,” My dad said. I hung up the phone. I felt angry, embarrassed, and a bit glad. I saw the school up ahead. I needed to talk to Twilight. - - - I saw Twilight walking in the halls alone. I guessed that she went to school alone today, good thing. I only had to watch one of them instead of four. She saws me and waved happily at me, but when she saw that I didn’t wave back she looked a little worried. As she got closer I saw her expression change from worried to nervous. I guess she saw that I wasn’t in a good mood. “Did you answer the phone today?” I asked her before she was able to say anything. “What? Um…yes.” She sounded a little nervous, like when we first met. “Was it my parents?” I said, my voice was too calm. “I think so.” It looked like she shrunk. “Twilight…” I didn’t know what to say. I had an urge to yell at her and ask what right she had to answer my phone and talk to my parents, but I had another feeling telling me not to yell. She was my first friend and I should just forget the whole thing. I held my hand to my head. “I don’t know what to say right now. Just don’t do that again.” She nodded, looking sad. I turned away. “Did you see your friend?” She shook her head. Now I felt really bad for saying that to her. Before I could apologize, Kevin showed up. “Hey, what’s up guys!” He punched my shoulder. I returned that hit with a glare which he recoiled from. “Do me a favor, keep an eye on her.” I looked over at Twilight. “I need to be alone for a bit.” I stormed off. I can hear Twilight say something to Kevin, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I decided to go to class, even though I wasn’t in the mood to do work. My first period class was English. We were talking about old fairy tales and what meaning they had hidden within them. I really didn’t care about it, I just read all the other stories that I grew up with. I was currently reading the story rumpelstiltskin when I heard someone say my name behind me. “Why does Seethe look so down today? It’s to early for Steve to be picking on him.” a girl said “What is today?” said a guy. “April 16th, why?” the girl asked. “You should stay a few feet back from him today. His brother died this day a few years ago, and he gets really angry around this time.” the guy explained. I turned to face them. “Hey! Mind your own business!” Both of them jumped back a bit. I went back to reading my book. “Damn it. I wish I could rip myself in two like you right now Rumpelstiltskin” “Excuse me class,” My teacher said. “We have a new student today. She transferred from the college level and has moved up to the mixed. Please welcome Caroline Dalton.” My heart stopped. Caroline Dalton? No this wasn’t happening. I looked to see the new girl and sure enough there she was. Her Bright red hair was tied into a pony tail. She looked around the room, eager to see the new kids that she would get along with. “Hey!” she said to everyone. They all did their own hellos back. A few guys were checking her out; I needed to leave the room. “Well we should have a seat open for you somewhere Caroline. Let’s see.” My teacher started to scan the room. There were two desks opened for her, one was next to the window, and the other was beside me. I saw the teacher look in my direction and I knew his answer. “Why don’t you sit there?” He pointed to the desk next to me. “Right next to Seethe.” Hey face turned from excitement to shock as she realized I was there. We looked at each other for a few minutes, unable to speak. “Is there a problem?” our teacher asked. “N-no there’s no problem.” She walked over and sat down beside me. We sat there in silence, not knowing what to say to each other. I turned to look at her, and at the same time she looked at me. We both looked away fast and our faces red. Finally one of us spoke. “I see you missed me.” She said pointing down to my pocket. I realized that the picture Dash was holding of me and her was hanging out of my pocket. I stuffed it back in and tried to ignore her. “Listen Seethe, I’m sorry ok?” she apologized. “For what?” I asked, knowing the answer. “I’m sorry I left you for Steve. It was a stupid mistake.” She sounded sincere about it. “Sure was,” I mumbled. “Seethe why are you acting like that? You were one of the nicest guys I knew. The only nice guy I dated for that matter.” I looked at her, right in her eyes. “If that’s true then why did you dump me?” It’s the question I’ve been asking myself ever since she broke up with me. She never said why, she just left. She sat there, her mouth open but nothing came out. I waited for her to say something, but it was like watching a glacier melt. Finally something came out. “Seethe…“ “Pssst!” I heard Kevin outside the class room. I looked at him and he gestured to me to come outside. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said putting my head down on my desk. I wanted to know what Caroline was going to say. I looked back at her. “Guess we’ll talk later, that is if you want to talk.” I got up and told the teacher I had to go to the bathroom. As I walked away I saw Caroline look sad. If it wasn’t today, I’d probably ask what’s wrong, but I was in no mood to be Mr. nice guy. When I got outside I saw Kevin looking around the hallways. “Dude, I’m right here, what’s wrong?” “I lost Twilight,” He told me. “You lost Twilight? How did you lose Twilight?!” I glared at him. “I don’t know, one minute she was beside me, the next she disappeared.” He sounded like he was panicking. “Did you check the Library?” “That was the first place I checked!” I wanted to scream. Why was today the worst day of my life. My parents called me, Twilight talked to my parents, Caroline is now in my class, and Twilight is missing. How can this day get any worse? “Seethe!” I heard Twilight yell. That’s how. Kevin and I both looked at each other, then towards the hallway where we heard her. She was running down the hallway with someone that looked familiar. It was a girl with purple hair, but hers was different from Twilights. Instead of a pink highlight and straight, it was all purple and at the ends it was curled a bit. She looked more pretty too, and because of all that, I guessed that Twilight had found Rarity. “Seethe, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Twilight told me. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “What?” “Twilight where have you been?” Kevin asked, sounding more relieved than angry. “I just said I was looking for Seethe. I found Rarity, although it was a bit tough trying to get her away from everyone.” “Yes, well, being popular has both its advantages and disadvantages.” Rarity said. “You’re popular?” Kevin asked. “You just got here.” “A lot of people in this school always follow the pretty ones around,” I noted. Rarity giggled. “Thank you for the compliment.” I rolled my eyes. “Twilight don’t do that again, you almost gave Kevin a heart attack.” She lowered her head. “I’m sorry.” “Come on Seethe, give her a break,” Kevin said. “Hey, you were freaking out almost as much as me. She shouldn’t have done that.” “She found her friend. She was happy till you said that.” I rolled my eyes again. “Fine, I’m sorry ok.” I heard the bell ring, first period was over. “Damn it! I was going to see what Caroline was going to say,” I said angrily. “Who?” Rarity asked. “Nothing. Well since we’ve found Rarity, lets go home.” “Seethe what’s wrong with you?” Kevin asked. “You’re acting really weird today.” I looked at everyone. They all looked worried, although Rarity didn’t look as worried considering she just met me. I didn’t want to tell them what day it was today, it would pain me too much. I started to scratch my head, trying to think of an escape route out of this. “I just have a lot on my mind right now.” I said. I didn’t know if they believed me, but they decided to leave me alone for a bit. I was glad they didn’t persist, because I had a feeling I was going to snap at one of these guys. - - - As we stepped outside to go home we had some unpleasant encounters. “Seethe!” I heard Caroline’s voice coming from behind us. I inhaled deeply then turned to face her. “Yeah?” She stopped when she saw my company. She looked at Kevin first, then at the two girls beside me. “Who are they?” she asked. “Uh… that’s Kevin” I pointed towards Kevin, who grinned. Caroline nodded but kept staring at the others. “Yeah hi, who are these two?” she glared them down. I stepped in front of them to break her eye contact. ‘What’s wrong?” I asked. I can see that she is upset at something. “I just want to know who they are Seethe.” She tried to crane her neck to look past me but I kept getting in the way. “None of your business,” I answered plainly. “Seethe why are you acting like this?” she looked right at me, trying to see the answer somewhere on my face. “Its because his brother died a few years ago today,” said someone who was coming up behind Caroline. I looked past her, and to my horror I saw that it was Steve. How did he know about my brother? He looked pissed. “Caroline we need to talk,” He said trying to control his anger. She took a few steps back, clearly afraid of him. “What’s up Steve?” He grabbed her arm and looked at her face. “Firstly, why are you with him?” He glared at me, which I returned with a huge grin. “And second, tell me why we broke up.” “Oh, she broke up with you for no reason to eh?” I said. His glare was more menacing now, but I still grinned at him. “Stay out of this brony.” He looked back at Caroline. “I said why did we break up?” “Let go of me,” Caroline said, trying to get her arm free. “Steve, she said let her go,” Kevin said, going to stand right beside me. Steve looked at both of us and laughed. “This is a private conversation guys, butt out.” His tone was serious, like any minute he would attack. “Steve, just leave her alone man,” I said. Steve looked at me, grinned, and let her go… well he kind of threw her at us but he still let her go. I looked at her and asked if she was ok. She didn’t look at me but she said yes. I looked back at Steve, who was still grinning, but I can see that under that grin was anger. I smiled back and walked off. “Seethe!” I heard Twilight yell. Before I asked what was wrong, I felt something heavy hit the back of my head. I started to fall to the ground as my head was spinning like crazy. I felt someone catch me right before I could hit the ground. “Steve, what the hell was that for?!” I heard Kevin yell. I didn’t see him, my head was hurting too much for me to turn my head. Instead I saw Caroline, Twilight, and Rarity trying to keep me steady. “Why don’t you go home and watch that stupid pony show Seethe?!” Steve yelled. “Go watch ponies prance around being stupid! Go and see those stupid characters again like Rainbow crash or Twilight or whatever their names were! Go live in that world where everyone is a stupid pony!” His rant went on but my gaze was on Twilight. I saw in her face that she understood a few things. One was now she knows why I knew she had a horn. Another thing was what a brony meant as Steve continued his rant. And finally why I freaked out on her the first time we met. She looked me right in the eye and I felt horrible. I saw a lot of confusion, but some anger was there too. “Steve just leave before I beat the crap out of you again!” Kevin yelled back. I heard footsteps going away, and guessed that Steve finally left. When my head was feeling a bit better I got up and tried to walk home. “Seethe… Is it all true?” Twilight asked. She sounded unsure for some reason, like she heard Steve wrong and wanted to make sure she heard something right. I nodded but I still tried to continue walking. “Why?” her voice was a bit shaky. She swallowed and tried again. “Why haven’t you said anything?” I stopped moving. I stood there not sure what to say. “Twilight, maybe we should get-“ Rarity tried to calm her down, but Twilight didn’t want to. “Seethe! Why?!” she yelled. I turned around to face her. I had had the worst day so far, and now Steve had to say that… that one thing. “What do you want me to say?” I asked her. She wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “I want the truth!” I could see tears were forming in her eyes. “I was afraid of your reaction ok.” My voice started to get shaky. “Like right now, you’re upset and mad because of this, and I’m so sorry for that.” I looked down at the ground. “When I first met you and your friends, I felt like nothing else mattered anymore besides taking care of you guys. I was going to tell you guys later, when the time was right, but now…” I didn’t finish, my voice didn’t want to cooperate with me. I looked back at Twilight, she was still mad. I felt horrible; My first friend hates me I kept thinking. “I’m sorry,” I said and then I turned and ran. I couldn’t be there anymore. I felt like I just lost my brother again, and that pain was too much. I had to go somewhere. An idea popped in my head, I’ll go to the one place where I always go when I had bad news: the bridge. - - - I sat at the edge of the bridge, looking down at the traffic. What am I going to do now, Twilight hates me, and she is going to tell everyone else the news and they will hate me too. I was so deep in thought that I didn’t hear someone coming from the end of the bridge. “So they finally found out what you are eh?” That voice…That stupid voice. I turned to see Steve standing at the end of the bridge, smiling his face off. “So you all depressed now?” He said in a joking way. “Leave me alone Steve, why do you have to torment me like this?” I felt so depressed that my voice was low. “Because its fun! You trying to make friends, me shooting down your chances. Watching you crash and burn.” He started to laugh. “Ah, this is amazing.” I put my head down. His whole reason was just to put me down even more than he already did when he pretended to be my friend? That’s a new kind of low. “You thought you actually had friends didn’t you? Too bad you’re a freak and no one wants to hang with you!” Something inside me clicked when he said that. “What did you call me?” I asked, my voice was calm. I saw him smile. “Freak? What you don’t want to be called freak?” That was it, that thing that made me click. I felt angry, really angry. He is calling me a freak? What the hell does he think he is?! I stood up and started to walk towards Steve. “What you’re going to fight me? Come on Seethe, you and I know that’s not a good ide-“ I punched him in the cheek. He staggered a bit, but I didn’t let him take a breather. I punched as hard as I could in his gut. He doubled over, his head was now right at chest level. I stepped back and drove my foot right into his face. He fell over on his back groaning. I sat on his chest and raised my fist into the air. “WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE!” every time I said a word, I punched him in the face. He tried to defend, but I shoved his hands away every time he tried. He tried to get up, but my body weight was too much for him as he was getting his face dented in. I kept whaling my fist into his face for a good ten minutes. It felt good to hit him, and I was feeling better every time I saw blood. He stopped moving after a while and I decided to stop. I was grinning like a mad man looking down at him. I looked at my hands and my grin vanished. They were covered in blood. “Oh God.. ” I staggered back. “Oh God, what have I done.” I looked down at Steve, but he wasn’t moving. Did… did I kill him? No… No no no no no no! This wasn’t happening! What did I do?! Why didn’t I stop?! “Steve!” I started to shake him but he laid there. I took several steps back till I hit the end of the bridge overlooking the traffic below. I looked over the edge, and that feeling come back, telling me to jump. Everything came back to me, my brother dying, my parents yelling, Twilight getting upset. “….”. I started to climb onto the railing, this was it. I’m going to do it. I looked down, wondering where I was going to end up. Maybe in the middle of the road, or on top of a car. Either way, I was going to do it. I heard footsteps coming form behind me and I heard a gasp. “What happened here?!” I heard someone but I didn’t look. “Seethe, what are you doing?!” The voice was panicking. I heard feet pounding towards me. I didn’t want them to stop me, I made up my mind. I took that step forward.