This Is Your Story!

by Mahayro

Never Again

Author's Note:

WARNING: This chapter is not for the faint of heart. An overview of what happens here is included in a note at the top of the next chapter, so you can skip it without much consequence.

Hello. I'm okay, I guess.

I have no idea how I got here.

But there are much worse fates than forgetting the past, and I just about met the leader of that pack two days ago.

Good old CAD--coronary artery disease. A heart attack, simply put. I don't know how it got this bad without my at least noticing the possibility. I have the perfect storm of risk factors: unhealthy diet, unsteady sleep, astronomical blood pressure, and constant stress. It may run in the family as well...not that I'm about to ask about that.

At my age, I'm assured a full recovery with a proper regimen of drugs and lifestyle changes. "Still young"--not exactly the situation I thought of to be applying that notion to myself. But this means I have to change a few things. They won't change back--not if I want to keep living. I have really entered a new realm, a new era of my life. Moving forward is the only choice. I can look back, but that was a different time. Still, I can hope for tomorrow just like I ever have.

I'm curious about the previous pages, but no--Carrot and I both know I'm not ready.

I'm told the pale pony waited here for me the whole time. He must have rescued me. He must have gotten me to medical aid. (Nopony else really knows, though. I was just...here.)

He brought the book here and gave it to me when I first awoke. He never wrote a word since I got here, by Carrot's word. He didn't let Carrot touch it, either. She eventually gave up that fight--probably because there's no actual fighting allowed in here. They came to a silent agreement, apparently: it's my turn.

When I was younger, really young, before Berry even, I imagined writing a story would be such fun. Imaginative stories are fine--and Carrot agreed with me on that point--but there's just something so disturbing in writing just about yourself and your friends. This isn't an autobiography. This isn't a diary, either. This is the story of our lives. Everything that happens here on these pages, actually happened recently to myself and ponies I know. Just knowing that and thinking about that feels a little disgusting. Maybe that's not the right word--but in any case, it feels wrong. Why are we even still doing this?

The pale guy seems to have been doing something more than just writing, but I forgive him. Carrot won't say a word on the matter, but at least she's not blaming him for the heart attack. Or she's not admitting it, if she is.

Thirty-six years old, and here I am--lying on a bed, wires strung to me, beeping monitors and arrays of tubes and other sorts of things I wouldn't expect most ponies twice my age to have dealt with firsthoof. From what my initial discussions with the staff told me, I'll be on blood pressure meds for a long time--possibly the rest of my life. They can hardly even attempt to explain the scale of what I've done to myself to get here. But I am experienced in this bedside manner business, and I can tell they're hiding something from me as well. I'll probably find out about it when I leave.

For now, I just stay calm and try to smile a bit.

I should be lucky to be alive.

Carrot was reading on and told me she's glad to be alive, too. That was the first time I saw her really cry and feel the pain of her nearly losing me. She also told me again to wait before reading the old chapters. She didn't want me to fail again. I wound up here in the middle of something really intense.

She had waited here for quite a while, too. Not having a regular sort of job, she just grabbed some supplies and made a day of it. I wonder why she didn't get my Berry, though. I'll forgive her for now, but now I wanna see her again.

The pale one waited pretty much the entire span. I don't want to think too much about how the nurses let him in here without being a relative or emergency contact of mine. If it's not mind control, it's something like it. Carrot and I both know that now. (Carrot offers the term "hypnotic suggestion". Guess she's been thinking about this for quite a while.)

I also know one other thing. I've felt...miserable...like something has been missing, and I've been feeling it for a long time. I guess I can't just will that away. But today's a little better. That's odd--I'd always thought these kinds of medical episodes tended to leave one depressed and concerned with the morbid. It would be hilarious if I had somehow repressed that for my own good...

Oh yes. Carrot also told me that I'd come clean with her about the repression. So that's one burden off my back, one less secret to keep--and as long as she keeps everything to herself, maybe Berry won't even kill her for it. She has been quite gentle today--trying her best to be considerate. She's got a lot of work to do in that department, but it's really flattering.

I wonder if she's still trying to be me. Sorry hun, you can't just take my life over and leave yours behind. But then, I kinda hope you don't want it anymore--look at me now, for pony's sake.

Enough about the mushy stuff, though. I get bogged down in that way too easily.

There's no window outside in here. I asked the good Nurse Redheart about options on that front, and she just said to try again tomorrow. Once again, I could tell something was amiss; it's her job to relate to my needs however possible, and that cursory response rubbed me the wrong way.

As much as I find myself strangely comfortable with the escaped pale unicorn, I'm still not sure what to think of him as an actual pony. He sits and stares, and that's about it. If lacking a voice were his only real problem, then he would still have other interests--even just getting up and moving about every once in a while. Is that so much to ask?

I eventually just asked him this outright. He didn't do a thing in response. Carrot told me not to try to talk with him again, as that could end up agitating me as well.

So, what does that leave me to wonder about? Hospital rooms aren't renowned for being interesting places to sit and think about. Guess I'll just stop here.

I guess I hadn't repressed everything after all. It's starting to come back on its own.

The pale unicorn was writing about me. He wrote my story. And here I am, essentially being passed the torch. So it is mine! And...he wanted me to remember.

I told this to Carrot, fearful that I might suddenly recall something unpleasant that could wound me. She started to panic herself, not sure that the nurses would allow what she wanted to do. But they let her at least hold my hoof. She was really, really afraid. She said she knew she couldn't stop me, but she really didn't want to lose me. Then she started rambling--about what, I couldn't quite tell. She was conflicted with something inside. She just kept holding my hoof for dear life.

What a funny phrase that is.

Dear Life,

When will everything start making sense?

When will you stop fooling around and playing games, and just be straight with me?

When will the mysteries stop?

How can I appease you, so you will let me be and let me be the best pony I can be?

I value you and I respect you now. I know that being with you is a privilege that nopony gets forever. It's sad that it's come to this...but I really feel that I've done my part. I ask that you honor your end of the bargain and offer me something, anything worth really living for. I don't think it's the missions anymore. And it can't be just another pony, because I've gone long enough without that.

Oh dear Celestia.

HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN GONE?

It's coming. More of it is coming. It wasn't repression two nights ago--just disorientation. I wasn't well that night. Something was making me feel very funny and, I think, tired.

I knew there was only one solution, one way to save me before I become overwhelmed with whatever was too much for me.

I told Carrot to fetch Berry. Immediately.

Sure--that left me at least sometimes with the pale unicorn as my only attendant--someone whom Carrot clearly did not trust and did not want me trusting. And yes, that made me vulnerable to a whole host of other troubles if somepony else should want in here...like my parents. Thank goodness my parents haven't bothered me. They would surely stress me out even more.

Keep breathing, Cole. Just stare at the ceiling a little more--in and out, belly full with air and then empty. Breathe your troubles out.

Berry will be here soon. We'll get this sorted out. She's not really gone.

Carrot came back, empty-hooved.

It was strange and not becoming of me. I hardly even had a thought or concern for faithful Carrot. I just wanted to see the pony behind her. Where was she!?

Something possessed me inside. Berry, I need to see you. The thought of you is rushing into me like a bullet train. Carrot actually sort of understood. But all she could tell me is the note she left for her on the door: "Cole and Fido are here--we are in hospital--he confessed--she wants you".

This permitted me just enough concern about Carrot to tell her back one simple thing: that she deserved a better friend than me. She just laughed and kept holding my free hoof.

Have I not been faithful enough to you, Berry? Is that why life has played this trick on me? But my conscience is clear. Is that why I've also been granted this mercy?

Carrot asked me to put the book down and stop getting lost in myself... (Getting lost in oneself is her job, after all.) So we talked for a while about simpler things.

She couldn't get Berry off my mind. It's like my whole world revolved around her. No wonder they didn't want me remembering too quickly.

I looked to the pale unicorn. I pleaded deep inside for him to understand me and help somehow--anything to make this better. He...read me, or something, and looked at Carrot. She growled and got all conflicted once again.

How wounded am I?

Carrot kept by my side, growing tired at the effort, and made idle talk about next week's idea for the fashion section. I didn't listen, and she almost definitely knew that, but she just did it anyway.

Bedtime. Just come already. Let the hours come--let them all come, let them turn me gray and crippled, as long as they bring me my Berry. Hurry.

I had slept sixteen hours. As much excitement as I'd had lately, I was so very tired inside. But I was able to stand on my own today, though I used a cane just for safety. I was free to go--only after they told me that something they'd kept from me.

I have been abusing the drug commonly known as Valley Hay--a relaxant often used for treatment of anxiety. Based on the levels they'd found initially versus my state at the time, I must have been using it long enough to develop a significant tolerance to its effects. It is even possible that an adverse "paradoxical reaction" had increased the likelihood of heart problems at some point. I kindly asked them to be plain with me because I could not ever recall obtaining such a substance, let alone using it. But I had hardly finished speaking those words before I realized.

It's the tea! Carrot stopped drinking tea with me a couple years ago, around the time she finished becoming Carrot. She thought I was doing something to her because she always felt so strange and tired after staying with me, but I never would hurt her. But this isn't my doing.

No, I really shouldn't trust the pale pony after all. I'm with you on this one, Carrot. But if he's really trying to make up for it--for messing with my head for years--why did he even let me make the tea at all? Or why did I mess with it? Or why did he? Or...

I really have no clue! Please, don't let me be going insane.

I just pleaded to the staff that I didn't know how it happened and I didn't want it to happen, and I'd even take their help to prevent it from happening again. They recommended that a professional search the apartment with me and remove any offending materials--to which I consented. But they also recommended that I submit to rehab...and I knew what that meant. It meant I couldn't be with anypony else for quite some time.

I needed my Berry. I craved my Berry.

I just curled up in a ball. I had nothing left that I wanted to say to them.

And then out of nowhere, she saved me.

She was an unholy mess. She was practically in a drunken rage. But it was my Berry. She was back!

She just shouted them all away, blowing the whole office into disarray. And she hefted me on her back and hauled me home.

Did I say "home"? Her home. It was supposed to be my home too. Wasn't it? Why wasn't it?

I just felt her warmth around me and got a little drunk myself--funny how I do that.

That's all I can write--I shouldn't even be using my horn right now. I just want to be with her for a while.

When we got to the place (she'd even brought my cane from the hospital!), she said she had an errand and would be right back. Or--well, it sounded more like, "Jusstayput. Berrygottaget thgang tgether." Oh right--Carrot wasn't there in the office with me. Hay, she might be getting worried for me already!

So: my last thoughts before this all ends. My last thoughts before we can put this all behind us--before we can do whatever healing we need.

I'm not going to read back right now. If Berry wants me to, I can do it then. Right now, though, we just need to catch up.

Carrot may be the detective of the bunch; but don't count me out, either. I can tell by how she avoided the Berry questions that we hadn't seen each other in a while--probably a number of weeks. Wait--that doesn't add up. I'd just realized yesterday that she'd been gone much longer, or it at least felt like it. And none of my belongings were here, of course. I really am starting to lose this game of Memory Catch Up.

But I have this book now. It's mine. I can use it to track my thoughts and whatever else happens--to review and recall, to follow my bread crumb trail--and keep those thoughts shared with my friends. The bridge to resolving this whole mess can be built. I can keep my way until Berry and I patch things up and my mind stops running away from the truth. So no matter what, I'm at least starting on that path to good health.

It's alright, Cole! Everything's really going to be alright! Never again to be lonely. Never again to be without a home.

Goddesses, I must sound delusional to someone else reading. You just can't know how blinking happy I am right now. I don't even have words for this kind of feeling that possesses me right now.

..........There's a picture in my mane? Of us? And another filly. She's so happy, nestled between us.

This is amazing! I have a filly out there! We have a filly.

Berry, where are you? What happened to this filly? How long ago was this? I still had a pure blue mane back then. Wow, I don't even remember when that changed.

Please come back, Berry! My heart is burning for you! I need you here!

(I'm going to try to be better about writing dialogue now. This is really, really important.)

She huffed in the door. "Yo."

I jumped at her. I didn't even care anymore. And I knocked the big sack she was carrying off of her back. It tumbled open. The pale unicorn accompanied us, tied up at the fetlocks.

"Yeah see? I brought 'im. Now we get answers." Her slurring was normally pretty cute, but she was clearly on a mission of her own. She wanted to put this puzzle together, too.

"Whoa...Berry, dear, slow down..." I was still draped around her, hugging her like there was no tomorrow. (I like that better than "for dear life"--and even really knowing what that means, I really meant it then.) It was like I was just as ecstatic to have her there as I was mortally afraid it would all slip away.

"Just don' drool on me, 'kay?" Berry wasn't much for bedside manner either, but at least I'd come to expect that.

I couldn't hide it anymore. I was barely trying from the start.

"Berry! You're everything to me. I had a heart attack, and I don't know what's gonna happen with my life...but at least you're there. We're gonna make things right. We're gonna--"

"'We're gonna shtart new journey tgether'? 'We catsh up on alla lostime from our stupid lives and get to whamatters'? 'We gon bringtall home, live it up tgether'?"

I was probably going to say something like that.

"Tell me some'n I haven heard! Tell me some'n yain toll me this moon aready!!"

Yeah...this could have happened before...what to say...

"But I'm remembering. Pale guy was trying to tell me the details--Carrot too--they won't let me forget anymore. So we can move on, Berry! We can move on!"

She shivered, then looked me square in the eye. For being so drunk, she was getting awfully serious.

"It's coming back! Look at this!" Up went the picture--the picture of us.

She gasped a little at it, then scowled back at me--which startled me such that I dropped it. "What's her name?"

"Huh?"

"If you're e'er gon be worth a damn to me, tell 'er name. Say it. Feel it. Bucking feel that pain. Bucking...shay it!"

I...had...nothing.

I was going to write all this in the book. Berry chuckled as I turned to look at this thing. "Yah, go head. Look it up." Then as I pulled out the pen and ink, she added, "'R maybe you wan jus buck wi me? Write all ya wan--write alllllll ya wan."

So I wrote every few minutes, or more often. No more pauses.

When I'd caught up and set it down, and she saw I still had nothing to say (she cut short my attempt to hug her again), she came clean with her intentions.

"I gathered ush all here tday fer lil demomsh-- demostaysh-- A taste o' Berry. An go head, Cole! Write it all! Write it all dow!" As far gone as she was, she saw fit to chug half a bottle of wine right on the spot--one of several she'd pulled up from the cellar and had sitting by the piano.

"So...the lil shit confessed." She tapped the pale unicorn's side with her forehoof. "Ah hope i' was good. Make lil shi' squirrrrrm an ruuuuun an wanna die. Make im run back tmommy. Oh, wait! Look wha Mommy found!"

And with that, she dragged him into the children's room.

She hollered from within, "Don' wanna mish thparty Cole! One firs'-class ticket ta fun!" So in I went.

"An don' worry, snot locked, jus shut it."

It was set up like the interrogation again. It was already set up. The narrator pony sat normally across from us--or rather, he must have been forcibly seated, given his bound hooves. Berry was a terrible interrogator; but I was going to get to see round two now, wasn't I? This was all shaping up to be quite unpleasant.

Berry read my thoughts, like she always did. "You know whas comin. Jush know you can leave whenever. Sfine. We got thbastard back, sall really matters now." She...suddenly was about to cry, and she hugged me tight. So tight. My impending worries melted as she sniffled into my mane and mumbled a few thoughts I couldn't even make out. I don't have ears in my scalp--but I figured out one. "It's not over yet." She said that one a bunch of times, clear as a bell, hardly slurring at all. "It's not over yet, it's not over yet." She was in this fight with me. She just had her way of doing it. The kinship was still there--there all along, waiting for me to come back.

Then it ended just as suddenly. She let go, and she focused on the pale unicorn. She spoke carefully, continuing to slur a lot less. She was really in the moment.

"What...brings us here today?"

The pale unicorn, of course, didn't say a thing.

"Anyone?"

"He confessed, Berry! He messed with our past!"

"Shut up! No one asked you!"

She was just being crazy again. "Twelve years ago! My first Winter Wrap Up! He was there!"

She tensed. I swear, I could never forget if she'd screamed like that before. She howled like there were twenty ponies inside her all trying to get out. She raged. For a second, she was rage. Her eyes positively glowed.

"I bucking know he was there!" What!?

"Berry...knows! I just needed...needed to know for sure. I felt you...I know who you are--" and she said a word I had never heard before. It sounded like "ah tah hahl neh".

Again, I was certain I had never experienced any of this before.

But then I saw the pale unicorn. He saw something. He saw something in Berry that I did not. For all the times I'd seen him, he possessed no emotion, no connection to the world--like he wasn't even there. But his eyes twitched. They didn't stare at either of us--they looked around. Something was happening in there, in his strange little mind. He was aware of something. I had no doubt that somewhere in there, he was afraid.

She stomped one hoof toward him, on that bed of a table that lay between them. "Well, there's nothing you can do now, huh? All I can do's thank you."

With crazy speed, she popped her hind end up toward him and planted a kick right on his muzzle. It looked dramatic, but it did very little. He just bent down a bit. Given it made almost no sound, he probably wasn't hurt.

I interrupted. "Berry, he knows too! He was going to give me my memories back. I just know it."

"You just don't bucking get it, do you!?" She swiveled a hoof toward me in objection--so forcefully that it probably would've hurt worse than that kick if I were sitting right next to her. But I was still at the corner by the door. I wanted no part in this, even after the hug. I was scared, too.

She rushed back toward the pale pony, a foreleg pulling and shoving his neck and face into hers. She practically spat at him. "I waited for her. I waited. I waited. I waited, and you kept her from me." She wasn't well. She was in pain. And she was going to give him her pain. Berry doesn't just know me. I know her too. That's why she hurt him so much the first time.

"How many years did I wait?" She smacked him--hard. His face spun. And again on the chest. A third time on a forehoof, and he bent in on that side. A fourth on the other forehoof, and he was prostrate. And she came around to smack him about the flank, the ribs, the back of the head, the outstretched fetlocks, the other flank, the other side of the ribs, the neck...then finally, she wound up both forelegs and drove them down into the middle of his back with all of her might. He released breath involuntarily.

This was already getting difficult for me. How much did he need to suffer--and how much had he suffered already? Something was already wrong with him mentally. Maybe he'd known some terrible, crippling psychological trauma. Maybe he'd already seen worse than all of us.

"Twelve! Years!" She spat in fury. "And you wouldn't stop there!" As he tried to bring his head up again, she walloped it to submission. "Then you tried to kill her! You tried to kill my Cole! You couldn't let er tell the truth! You jus had to keep it to yerself. But I know."

No, she doesn't know--but I couldn't interrupt her again. I wasn't sure myself. Maybe the drugs were killing me. Have it your way, Berry.

"But too bad you suck so bucking hard at everything. You can't even kill a worthless little filly trapped inna old mare body, girl who can't eve remember shit."

What was that for? Wait--she doesn't know. And how do I suddenly know?

"He made me forget! He made me forget so it wouldn't kill me!" I don't know! But I think that's why he did it.

She ran over to me. "Waaaaaaait, wait wait wait wait." Berry leveled with me with eyes that pierced so intensely that I felt a new pulse of fear even as I knew she only wanted simple answers. "What...exacly...did he confess to?"

Stammering, I somehow replied, "H-he took my memories after the Winter Wrap Up. I don't know. He had--he had a song...and I couldn't sing it. The song was going to bring me back. He confessed...he put away my memories until I could face them." I just wanted her. Screw the pale pony. I wanted her. "Help me Berry! Help! Just stay with me!"

I reached for her. But her mind was somewhere else...and her body quickly followed suit.

"Like you had the motherbucking right to!!!" She unleashed all barrels and all cylinders on the pale pony. I've seen my Berry fight many times before, but never like this. She was so very, very alive. She cracked his jaw. I heard it pop. She smashed his ear so hard I heard his neck crack. She landed an elbow in the gut which spilled him onto his back and off the bed. She jumped and forced her full body weight onto that exposed gut, blasting air and spittle from his mouth. She unleashed a flurry of punches on his cheeks, after dislocating his jaw, and I can only imagine the pain in that. She then landed a hook clean on the eye. It wasn't a feint--not like it was on the night.

Berry and I fought a couple moons ago. That was the night Carrot's house fell down. It fell down because of us--or was it because of him? Yes, it was him! He did that, too!

Berry knew my thoughts. "Ah-tah-hahl-neh. You hurt Carrot, too. All you had to do was do something--anything--when I called you out. Are you just scared too shitless to care about anything? Is that bucking book the only thing that matters to you? Why don't ya try writing in it right now? Go on ahead! Say something! Say something to save yer little ass right now! Go'n ahead!"

What?

I was writing at the time, and so I let it sit on the floor for a moment. The first signs of blood trickled from the side of his mouth as his wide open eyes turned to it before writing that line with his magic. He was becoming more and more aware of his situation. I don't know if that more made me fear him or fear for him.

Berry saw the glow of the book and came over. She totally incensed at the single word.

"Oh...you motherbucker!" She wasted no time in picking him up and smashing him repeatedly against the wall. The whole room shook with the energy. She was fighting full-force before, but now she was truly livid on top of that.

"I know you speak my language, and I know you're from this country. But you know what I donno? The one thing I don't know?"

Silence--or not quite silence. She was breathing quite hard, after all.

"I don't bucking know why you bucking hate me so bucking much!" Slam. Slam. Slam.

This was getting to be too much. I had no more words. I was just tucked in my corner. Berry, just deal with it...do what you must...

"You hated me. You hated me for my happiness. You took it all away. You take everything away, Ah-tah-hahl-neh. That's all you do. Well, now I get to pay the favor back. You ain't ever known happiness like you're gonna know it right now, you bucking pain-lover. Have it all! Have it all! Have it all!" She laughed like there really was no tomorrow. No tomorrow at all.

She unloaded on his right foreleg. She stamped it. She ground it. She jumped and jumped. The third hard stomp, it broke. I knew that sound. And she kept going. She smashed the hoof on the other end of that leg. She smashed it until it twitched on its own and the binding slipped loose in a sickening fashion. By then, the whole leg was probably fractured in two or three places.

"All this bucking time! I've had to remember for her! She keeps forgetting. And she keeps forgetting. And I've had to remember...EVERYTHING!" She was shouting so loud it could shake the room. Or maybe that was just my eyes. I must be shaking. I am shaking.

She picked him up again. All I could imagine was all the nerve endings in his foreleg mass, setting off with every movement. How...just how could he stay silent? What was he? She slammed him into the wall again.

The wall sconce disrupted. The candle within it tumbled. She stomped that, too. Darkness instantly overtook us. Only my horn's glow let me continue writing.

"It's not jus yer pain, is it? You get off on all our pain, too! You broke 'er. You broke 'er and now she gets to write your bucking tombstone! Ain't life beautiful!?" She thrust into his chest. She aimed for the place just below the sternum, the celiac plexus. She knew how to make ponies hurt. She must have gotten it on the first try because he caved forward in a spasm and coughed wetly, his own movements surely causing even more damage to his foreleg.

This was going to be irreversible soon. This was going beyond torture. I had to put a stop to this.

"Berr, stop! You're going to regret this!"

She looked up. She howled. She howled up to the ceiling, baying like a wolf.

Wait...that was her face. Her face was a faint constellation on the ceiling, looking down upon us. It was like she was looking right at me. Those eyes were meant for me. They were meant for me!

"Nothin' doin', Cole. This ain yer battle. Ye're jus inna crossfire now. Jus leave if ywanna."

Wow...I was already at the door--I didn't even realize I was heading that way, I was so scared. The door--it was locked! No!

She giggled like I'd just sneezed cutely or something. It was wrong beyond wrongness. "Oh, wai'--forget that, too? Berry time never ends! You're here forever!"

She'd lied--but more than that, she'd locked herself in here, too. She was done caring. She knew how bad this was going to get. Tomorrow was a dream. This is the end.

So I just sat again and wrote. Not much else for me to do. Anything to keep me busy. Anything. Just keep doing. Keep doing.

Then she assumed a sulkier pose, facing the young thing. She relaxed quite a bit, and I really heard the alcohol again.

"Now, Fido baby, I ain a good mare, but I'n get you outta all this mess. Less try iss, huh? You jus go' do one thing. One thing. An ah leave ya lone frever. Promise, cross ma heart, all at shit. Jus do one thing."

Was the pale pony not completely overtaken in agony? No--somehow, he turned his neck up to look at her as she stood on two hooves. It took him so long, though... He was struggling.

"Give us 'ose twelve years of our life back, ye home-wreckin' piece o' shit!!" She's right. She's right, but I don't know anymore. Now she's wrecking it too. I can't ever forget this.

She paused just long enough to let him respond--but it was more of a farce. She was just winding up for the next part of the ride. She grabbed my cane.

The darkness, the eyes, the pain, the hatred, everything I know. Let it all end, please.

She slobbered as she shouted. "You kill Minnie! She never co|ming back! She never let me back in'r home. She never knew she kick me out!" She turned around to me, with a g<rin that hurt even to think about. Her eyes /were knives--but I was bleeding out already. I did that!? I was far too gone to start crying now.

"But... She din know... Everthing went to hell... Then you HURT us--you ROBBED us--of OUR lives!" One, two, three four five--the h\a\rdwood cane fell upon his side, each time with enough force to bre/ak a healthy tooth from its home. Ribs cracked, and his form tensed up. But Berry sounded in ph\ysical pain herself, just trying to shout through it.

I can barely ke\ep writing. Everything's so n\umb.

But his| horn glowed. He was trying...

The book was warmin>g up. It got hot, and I had to drop it. Jagged lines appeared ever^ywhere on the page. He couldn't even write anymore, he was in so much pain.
—
"Berry, just stop...he can't even fight|| back anymore...he can't even write anymore...I can't..." I turned away.

She dashed over and picked me up, pinning me to the corner with my forehooves. She wasn't anyone I wanted to know righ/t now, but she spoke to me as if^ she were. That attitude wasn't one of anger--just determination. And there was still a tiny shred of compassio\/n left. I could hear it--I could feel it. And I didn't deserve it. That was the worst part of all.

"Cole, this is your last chance. You have to remember. If you give a buck about anything in this world--not just me, anything--you have to remember. It's gotta be you. It can't be me. You..." She was fighting back tears. "You tried to kill it all away, in your mind. But I remember everything. You're someone else now. But me..." She pushed hard on my pinned hooves. She thumped one on the wall to mark the pain in her words. "...I'm still...right...here."

Then she did sob, just for a moment. "If I could...bucking...start again..." She shook so much, but no tears came. She just couldn't shed them in front of me. Then she suddenly broke out wailing so hard, hard as Carrot did that one night... I heard the tears inside. Tears for another mare. One who looks just like me.

"Wait..." She looks around me, toward my flank. "He...you...he didn't take that away, did he... You can do it. You can take us back... We can start again...just..buck, just let us start again. Can you...you can do it..."

She wanted me to use my magic.

If that could have worked, we wouldn't be here right now. You know this, Berry. That's not how things work.

I just slowly, slowly...shook my head.

Then I felt it all, her muzzle against mine, sobbing so strongly it shook both of us. She'd half-collapsed against me. Her hot breath made me bristle, reminding me with a familiar sting that I was there and this wasn't a dream. It eased over a minute or two...her face still hard against mine, until she was able to pick herself up again.

"You just have to remember. Please." But I was powerless to fight. I had nothing. All I could do was look to her.

That puff of a moment--it hung upon us like the stench of decay. The stinking abscess where our lives had rotted out from the root.

Then I dared to light her face, her desecrated shrine of emotion. It took me a second to even recognize it as a face. Everything I thought was Berry, vanished like a bubble on a needle. I saw her pain. It was worse than that smile. It was worse than the frown on the ceiling. I saw her hurt. I knew it. I wasn't ready for it. I thought I hurt. What I thought...it was her reality.

Her lips, they peeled all over her face--they showed a hard and vivid grimace, and they couldn't hide it. Her eyes were wet, bloodshot, worn, sunken, and unloving--not seeking anything, not showing anything, just there. Her cheeks pinched tight and red, like little sour berries of their own--the fruits of a withered vine. I could see lines all about her eyes and along her muzzle and on her forehead--lines of age I swore I'd never noticed before. All the space of tenderness and care was consumed by this mass of sickly contortions--aching, throbbing, everywhere.

She just looked at me like that...sniffling, sometimes twitching, awaiting a response. I couldn't give it. Because I don't even know what I am.

And after another minute, maybe two, she shouted anew and let me go. She screamed from the gut as she pounced toward the pale pulp-pony. She flew and descended with an elbow, right onto his side. I'm sure a rib broke completely that time. I know because I finally heard him.

The first scream from the pale pony--it was so high, so hoarse, impossibly harsh. It tore into me like a baby's cry for help. It just raised as it carried on. The pitch, the volume, the everything. He just opened up. His whole world was pain. That was all he could convey. And that was all we heard for some time. It penetrated and filled me. Trauma everywhere.

Trauma. In Berry. Now in him. Because of me.

I DID THIS.

And Berry actually gave him time to feel that pain, rolling off and laying beside him, looking, feeling. Was she a pain-lover too? But shouldn't I know that already?

He howled for so long...the minutes stretched on. It was just straight yelping and screaming--no sobs, no tears. Sometimes he coughed...there was probably blood in his coughs. I hope you're happy, Berry. You took my vileness and you broke him with it.

But she wasn't. Ten minutes in or more, as he finally grew too hoarse to scream properly, she turned to him as they still lay by one another. She must have done her magic to clean the wine from her system--the magic she didn't like using. She wasn't angry anymore...she was totally burnt out. She still wanted to be angry, though. She'd given up on being anything else.

"You hurt me, you hurt my friends...but then you hurt my Berry Bunch. That's where you cross the final line. You took so many years from me...I couldn't raise Sunny right, or Dandy, and it's too late for the others...it's too late now... You didn't just kill me. You killed my whole family. There's just no way you can make it up, not even by dying. But it's time you start trying."

She pushed herself up, then sat him up. I should be glad I couldn't really see what was happening with that right foreleg. He was still letting on gasps and wheezes of unconscionable pain. Then it just became too much. I heard him fall silent and tumble back down, no doubt passed out from the experience.

Mother of Celestia, she was getting angry again. How!?

"No! No! No! No!" Each "no" came with a buck to the face. "You don't get to miss this! My Sunny didn't get to miss sleeping in the cold, in the dead of her first winter! I didn't get to miss all the nights I slept with a buck just so we could eat! We didn't get to miss seeing my Minnie all happy in her home while we died out there!" She just kept kicking him, not to break but to bruise. She kicked him everywhere with my wickedness. Thump. Thump. Thump.

"'Never again!' That's what she bucking told me! 'We could never let this happen again!' That was the last thing she ever told me before..." She didn't turn. "Before she became you, Cole."

I don't want to be anywhere anymore.

No. It's worse. I just noticed the light in the wall.

My voice is so weird. It sounds like broken glass. "Berry...someone's been watching us."

The door rattled for a second, and then it opened. Berry turned away from it. There was light. I didn't want to see.

"Well, guess what!? It happened...again!" She took the cane and slammed it all over the unconscious pony. Frenzy became her. Madness owned her. And...

Sunny screamed. She screamed and she pounded her hooves on her Mama. Mama kept beating. He was so, so pale. Crimson spots stained the floor around his scarred head. He was curled up, gone from us. He might be dead now. I don't know. Cole doesn't know anything.

Cole knows two things, maybe. Berry can't wake up from Cole's nightmare. And Cole should never have woken up at all.