Thunder boomed in the background alongside the powerful downpour that was hitting against the roof of the Cutie Mark Crusaders' Clubhouse.
The room was dark and quiet, the curtains drawn over the windows to block out the outside world. The light was switched off and the musty aroma of dust and age hung heavily in the air.
Since all of those years ago, all of the furniture, minus some crudely-drawn posters and bulletins, had been removed. Ever since the former owners of the clubhouse, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, had grown out of their childhood days of ambitious searching and exploring themselves on a quest to figure out their true life's calling, the old clubhouse that served as their headquarters had served no purpose other than a happy memory.
However, on this night, Scootaloo, the orange-coated, scruffy-maned pegasus of the group, found herself with her back pressed against the door. In the keyhole, the key was turned and sealed it shut, leaving the young mare on her own and isolated from the outside world.
The time was night and there was no other soul around. All the other ponies in the world had long become a slave to sleep and delved off into the dream realm where Princess Luna oversees their thoughts and ensures they have a night of peaceful tranquillity.
Scootaloo quivered against the cold leaking into the small room from outside. Due to the lack of maintenance around the wooden cabin, some of the rain had managed to seep its way in and roll down the corner of the wall on the opposite end of the pegasus. She didn't care about it or even acknowledge it. Her mind was focused elsewhere.
The clubhouse was the only place she could think of to vacate to. She wanted to get away. She wanted to be far away from the misfortune that had been thrown at her since she was a little filly. She was sick of it. Sick and tired.
It started off with the two notorious brutes of the class, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Her body still itched with their words and the hate she felt towards them.
She sat in the middle of the classroom between her two best friends, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, her head in her hooves as she tiredly and boredly watched Miss Cheerilee scratch some chalk against the board, writing out something about the history of the Griffon Kingdom. She was on the verge of falling asleep until she was called out by the teacher.
Suddenly flicking to life and at full attention, Scootaloo's eyes came to meet an annoyed-looking Cheerilee. She frowned at her and pointed to the board with a hoof.
''Scootaloo, do you care to explain how the Griffon Kingdom was founded?'' She asked, all the while watching the pegasus.
Scootaloo could feel every single set of eyes dig into the back of her skull. She was used to it by this stage. Because of moments like these and her lack of attention when the teacher was at the board and giving a lecture, the orange mare would find herself sitting through an hour of detention after school.
Of course, she didn't know the answer. The most common lesson that she would find her interest and attention span crumbling away was history.
She was never good at taking in knowledge.
''I...um,'' She began, stumbling over her words as the weight of stares directed at her from other students made her feel all the more insecure. How she wished that something would happen and cause a distraction. There was nothing more that she wanted than for the roof of the school house to cave in or for the bell to ring. ''I don't know,'' She finished, her voice quiet and deflated.
That was when the laughter at the back of the classroom began. That sick, bitter, gut-wrenching laughter. Diamond Tiara's and Silver Spoon's laughter.
She inwardly growled at their spiteful vocals.
Somehow, their laughter was more toxic than the insults they usually throw her way. Right then and there, Scootaloo wanted to run and hide. She also wanted to go up to the two disrespectful and arrogant runts and kick their teeth in. The thought was blissful.
''Stay behind after class is over, please, Scootaloo. I think we need to have a little chat,'' Miss Cheerilee said firmly before glaring at the back of the room to silence the two tyrants of the class. They fell quiet in a heartbeat.
The way they smiled gingerly with a glowing golden halo above their heads was disgraceful and bitter.
Almost just as soon as Cheerilee went back to drawing on the board, the chatter and muffled giggles continued. Despite their voices being minimised so that it was out of earshot of the teacher, Scootaloo got the distinct feeling that they wanted her to hear it.
It rattled her cage and she could feel her blood begin to boil. She could feel a growl of hate building up in her throat.
''She's such a loser. I bet her parents regret having her as a child,'' She heard Diamond Tiara snicker her sidekick.
''Yeah, definitely! I mean, come on, having a daughter as useless as her and keeping her seems almost pitiful,'' Silver Spoon added, both of the two brutes falling into a fit of giggles.
Scootaloo's heart twitched and her eyes and lips quivered with anger and hate. Nopony, especially Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon were going to disrespect her family if she was going to have any say in the matter!
''Oh, that is it! You're dead!'' Scootaloo practically screamed with a burning anger as she threw her desk over and shot from her seat with her wings outstretched.
She turned to face the two bullies and she barred her teeth at them, ready to launch herself into them and give them a beating that they won't ever forget. Their faces were stricken with fear as they shrank back under the gaze of the pegasus.
However, before she could have the chance to even move, a light green aura was cast around her and freezing her in place. She was surprised and annoyed to find that Sweetie Belle had conjured up a magical field, her horn glowing a dim light green.
''Scootaloo! No!'' She said, her eyes wide in shock at her friend's explosive attitude. Averting her eyes from the white unicorn, Scootaloo looked all around her, from the students to the teacher and finally landing her purple eyes upon Apple Bloom.
The cream-coated and red-maned farm pony held a horrified expression behind her gold eyes. She just stared at her for a moment, seeing her own reflection in her friend's eyes. That snarl, the hate painted upon her face and the pure negative energy that was radiating off of her.
She knew that she should have ignored the pair of bullies, but her anger that had bubbled within her core was no longer able to sustain itself. She had officially lost control of herself.
Not one single soul knew about her troubles and her anger. Yes, she can fly and ride a scooter pulling off tricks and stunts to impress ponies like Rainbow Dash, but deep down, Scootaloo had a black hole in her heart that had swallowed her usually up-beat attitude and personality - Depression.
She was an under-achiever and she struggled to maintain a steady life. To say the least, she struggled to be happy. There were times when she would hang out with Apple Bloom or Sweetie Belle and she would always have a black thundercloud over her head. She would try to hide it, often failing miserably.
She became anti social and a recluse. Ponies just assumed it was something that came with the coming of age. Every colt and filly in the world of Equestria go through such alterations and mood swings, but when one would look the troubled mare in her icy purple eyes, it was evident that there was something deeper going on within her soul that was more than the simple stages of growing up.
Scootaloo began to smack the back of her head on the door of the clubhouse. The dull thuds were silenced by the sound of the rain and the rumble of thunder. She began to hit harder and harder with every blow, her frustrations boiling her blood and causing her nerves to itch.
Her guts were twisted in hurt and rejection. She felt alone and alienated, outcasted by the world. It caused her bodily fibres to tense and shiver.
She clenched her eyes shut as the blows her head made against the door became more forceful. The hard smacks eventually became so painful that tears began to burn her eyes, breaking through her clenched eyes and rolling down her cheeks.
Eventually, she stopped hitting her head against the wood and she screamed as hard as she could to the sky. The combination of anger, frustration, hurt and pain only added to the force of the ear-piercing scream.
She screamed for what seemed like an eternity, her lungs burning with exhaustion.
When she eventually stopped and was low on fumes, her body sank against the body of the door and she curled into a ball on her side. She hugged her knees tight to her chin and wrapped her tail around her body, snuggling against it.
On the back of her head, a burning sensation made its presence known, but she didn't care to acknowledge it. A warm trickle rolled down the back of her head, pooling on the floor around her head as she cried to herself.
The young girl felt cold on the inside and her heart felt twisted and rotten. Ever since that day at school, she had only worsened. After being stopped by Sweetie Belle, she stormed out of the room in anger, never to be seen by another pony.
That was three days ago.
She didn't want anypony to find her or hear her. She didn't want their company. A part of her told her that she deserved to be alone with how she's been acting as of recently, but behind that ill heart full of cold depression, she wished that she wasn't alone. All that Scootaloo wanted was for somepony to hear her and to listen to her.
However, she could never find the courage to speak to her friends or Miss Cheerilee about her troubles. She couldn't even tell Rainbow Dash, her surrogate big sister.
Could she tell her parents? No. No, she couldn't. As far as Scootaloo was concerned, they wouldn't understand her. Her parents never understood her. To them, the girl was nothing more than a worthless sack of rebellious energy. She couldn't understand why she defended their names when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon started mocking them behind her back in the classroom.
If she had to guess, the answer could only be that, no matter how disinterested or tired of her behaviour they may be, they were still her parents. She felt hurt by their opinions on her, but her respect for their role in her life still gave her the desire to stick up for them.
By now, they were probably scouting around for her. Everypony was possibly on the lookout for her. She could only imagine what Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were doing. There wasn't anything that they could have done to prevent Scootaloo from falling deeper into her depressive state, even if they did find her.
Off to Scootaloo's side, stashed into the corner of the room, was a small saddlebag that she retrieved from her home shortly after storming out. Luckily, her parents weren't around to witness her in her miserable state of mind upon her arrival to her house.
Tucked underneath the saddlebags was a small piece of paper that had black ink scribbled over its surface. The ink was partially smudged by her tears that were dotted around the page.
The note read,
To my parents, to Rainbow Dash and to everypony else, especially Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle,
I'm sorry. I have nothing left to live for and all I can do is bark in the dark. All I ever wanted was to be who I truly am. I wanted a loving home, my best friends and everything that could make me smile. I have so much love to give but I get turned down on every corner that I tread on. From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry. There's nothing more to say that hasn't been said already. I'm sure everypony understands and won't miss me once I'm gone.
I love you all.
- Scootaloo
Scootaloo, slowly lifting herself from the ground, plopped herself back down onto her haunches into a seating position before she opened her sky blue saddlebags with a hoof, pulling out a small wooden box.
Setting it down in front of her, she proceeded to undo a small latch on the front and raise the lid. The contents of the small box were a syringe, an orange-tinted bottle full of yellow and green pills, a label identifying them as cyanide pills, a small bottle of water and a small length of string that was tied into a small loop.
Her frosty purple eyes stared at the equipment for a moment as she thought about what deed she was about to carry out. Her heartbeat echoed loudly in her ears and it felt like it was about to erupt from her rib cage. Even against the storm raging outside, she could hear it bounce off of the walls of the clubhouse.
Well, buck. I'm really going to do this, aren't I? She thought to herself, sniffling. She reached a hoof into the box and grabbed the bottle of cyanide pills, bringing them up to her face so she could view the pills through the transparent orange plastic.
She gave them a small shake, watching them jiggle around in the bottle. She gave a heavy sigh and popped off the lid before pouring a small amount of the pills into her hoof.
Placing the bottle down beside her, she eyed the remaining green and yellow capsules. She observed them closely, her mind trembling and shaking with fear. She knew what she was about to do couldn't be reversed. Once she swallows the hoofful of pills, she would be gone forever. She would leave it all behind. Her friends, her family, everypony.
On one end, it made her feel selfish and guilty. On the other, she didn't want to be a part of the world. She only longed for peace and a state of quiet that the pills in her hoof promised to reward her with.
One, two, She counted in her head. Th-three...
She clenched her eyes shut, tossing the pills into her mouth and swallowed them. She could feel them work their way down her throat and into the depths of her body, entering her stomach.
''Scootaloo! Are you in there?'' The voice, recognised by Scootaloo's ears as Apple Bloom's, called from outside against the thunder and rain.
To think, her voice is the last one I'll ever hear, Scootaloo thought to herself as she plopped her head back against the door, slumping in place as she closed her eyes, waiting for the pills to take effect.
''I'm sorry,'' She whispered.