This was the most difficult crisis that Principal Celestia had to deal with in a long time.
Detention attendances was at an all-time high for the past week.
It was all thanks in part to the mysterious username "Anon-a-Miss" on MyStable. Whoever it was working behind the scenes, they had single-handedly took Canterlot High School by the neck and turned it on its head. Secrets were spread to other students across the school, students were specifically targeted and victimized, and the worst part of it all was, her own students allowed this user to spoon feed them this BS, and still they turned on each other because someone blew the whistle on someone else's private secrets.
It was official; Canterlot High had become the epicenter of the worst cyberbullying in history.
Celestia wasn't trained hard enough to deal with an epidemic this out of control before.
The stress was already getting to her. Anyone could see the split ends forming in her beautiful multicolored hair, and her eyes grew bags eerily reminiscent to those of garbage bags. It was just one thing after another with this "Anon-a-Miss" character. Celestia did not want this to become the bitter and sour note to kick off the holiday vacation.
But as she would learn, sour notes were not so easily sweetened. The only reason for this was because as she rubbed her face in her hands, her younger sister, Vice-Principal Luna walked in with a clipboard in her hand, holding a few sheets of paper under the clip. The serious look plastered on her face told Celestia enough that she meant serious business.
"More bad news, sister?" Celestia asked.
"More bad news, sister," Luna parroted, looking over the sheets. "Today's after-school detention just added three more students to the attendance. That makes ten detention slips from today alone out of the twenty-nine students that have already been sent there this week. As for the class attendances, there have been a small number of students who skipped classes today or did not come into school at all, and half of them are excused absences. That makes five percent of the student body in total."
Celestia sighed, gently rubbing her tired eyes. "How did this ever happen, Luna? This is the only time in Canterlot High each year when the students look forward to the last day of school before the holiday season, and they are destroying each other by sharing personal information and crudely commentated secrets through the use of a useless social media network."
"Your guess is as good as mine," Luna said. "This 'Anon-a-Miss' managed to spread its influence throughout the school like wildfire, and the students are either the ones handling the fire or the ones getting burned. Hence the number of students either in detention or disappearing from their classes today."
"Yes, but why now? Why would this eponymous user start spreading these secrets the week before the holidays?"
"I am not sure sister. Perhaps we should inquire that with the first students to be targeted by 'Anon-a-Miss,'" Luna suggested. "After all, the account claimed Applejack as their first victim, and then it went on to claim Rainbow Dash the next day, and then the rest of their friends as well. Does this not seem like a coincidence to you that the girls who once saved this school twice now would become the primary attack targets to this cyberbully?"
This had given Celestia some thought into the matter. For the first time since today, she leaned back in her chair and stared up into the ceiling above the bookcase in the back of the room, pondering these facts. "Yes, it does seem too much of a coincidence that these girls would be the first to have their secrets spread around the school."
"And that is not all, sister," Luna added. "Just today, when I was walking to the teachers' lounge for my coffee, I overheard a few students whispering that the perpetrator behind these attacks was none other than Sunset Shimmer, who was attending the girls' slumber parties right before the 'Anon-a-Miss' account started."
This alone immediately caught Celestia's interest.
"Are you sure about this?" she asked her sister.
"I am positive of what I heard," Luna said, nodding once. "Of course, the attendance sheet here should prove otherwise."
Luna handed the clipboard over to Celestia, who graciously took it without question. She inspected the class attendance sheet, and her eyes narrowed at what she saw. "I'm sorry Luna, but I'm having a hard time trying to understand this," the principal said, "but what does this attendance record have anything to do with this?"
Luna raised an eyebrow. "Sister, please tell me you haven't forgotten how Sunset Shimmer always had a perfect attendance record for the past three years? Never has she once made it to class a second late, yet when we look at the attendance sheet today, she made it through the first period of class right before the rest of her class periods reported her absence unexcused."
This immediately caught Celestia's interest.
She knew something was wrong with this picture.
"Really?" she said with said interest. "Do you think her friends know where she might have gone?"
"No, but I did overhear from the students that Sunset and her friends had an argument this morning and left her alone in tears."
Celestia's hunch was right on the money. "Luna, before the first classes begin, I need you to bring in Sunset's friends into my office."
"What is it, Celestia? Are they in trouble?"
"I don't know, Luna," the inquisitive principal answered, "but if I'm not wrong about this, and I hope to Heaven above that I am wrong, then 'Anon-a-Miss' didn't mean to target Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, or the rest of the student body. They were only part of the plan. The real target they were after was Sunset Shimmer, and given the recent posts by those who follow 'Anon-a-Miss's' account, it is safe to assume that their plan was to drive her away from the school grounds."
"But why?" the vice-principal asked. "I know Sunset Shimmer's personal record here is nothing to be proud of, but why would someone go out of the way at this time to drive her away from the school?"
"I don't know," Celestia said, "but it's not why they did that worries me more. It's where Sunset could have gone that's the problem."
"Do you have any idea where she could have disappeared to?"
Celestia turned in her chair, stood up, and looked out the window, staring at the equine statue at the main entrance of the school. She closely examined the patterns of Sunset's bootprints as they stopped at the statue, and the unusual shape that was formed in the snow. Then she noted the same bootprints circling around the statue, their tracks leading beyond the school grounds and into the town.
"No," she said calmly, "but wherever she is right now, I hope she hasn't done anything drastic. There is no greater pain than being driven away by people that once cared about you, but there is nothing scarier in this world than what you allow that pain to do to yourself."
Sunset heard something.
Some kind of sharply-pitched beeping?
Beep... beep... beep...
No, there was something else, too. It was like... snakes hissing in a constant cycle.
Hss... hss... hss...
There was another noise nearby. It sounded like... water dripping?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Something didn't seem right with her.
Where were all these noises coming from?
Was she still alive? Was she dead?
How was she even receiving these subconscious questions?
Sunset felt the urge to say something.
"Hrrnnng.... mmmhh..."
She felt her throat vibrate to her mumble.
Why was she feeling herself mumble?
"Hmmmmhhhh..."
Why did she hear herself mumble?
Why was she feeling linen silk on her body?
Why did she feel hard plastic and elastic rubber around her head?
Why did she feel like she was breathing?
Her eyelids fluttered a little.
A blinding light seared her corneas, making her squeeze her eyes shut.
Another fluttering of the eyelids, and she found the strength to open them again as her eyesight adjusted to the light.
It took a moment for the brightness to pass, and then everything became as clear as crystal.
It took another moment for her eyes to cease perceiving that everything was spinning round her.
After blinking a few times, she cast her gaze around wherever she was.
Ivory walls and ceilings... fluorescent lights... heartbeat monitor... IV drip bag... a comfortable bed cot with white silken blankets...
White and blue polka-dotted gown... feeding tube taped to into her arm... breathing mask... paper ring around her wrist...
Now it all made sense.
She was in a hospital bed... at the hospital.
"No," she thought, "no this isn't right. Why am I here? I should be dead. I want to be dead. Why would anyone save me?"
As her eyes darted from left to right, back and forth like an intense ping pong matches, her sight fell to a clear glass window on her right, looking into a part of the hospital's hallway, the walls built with refined and polished bamboo. There, just outside of her room, there were a couple of men conversing just outside her window, their voices blocked by the thick soundproof material of the glass. Sunset didn't know what they were saying over the soundproof glass, but she knew from first glance that they were talking about her.
One of those two men was a tall young adult male in his early twenties, with pasty-white skin, hair with a lighter and darker shade of blue. He was a police officer, a lieutenant in his own rank, hence how he wore a police uniform with a badge pinned on the left side of his chest, and a police hat he held in one of his hands crossed over with his arms. He had this stone-solid demeanor which he used as a basic intimidation tactic to squeeze the information right out of the people he interrogated, which seemed to work a lot in his job. Even still, that demeanor of his meant he was also listening carefully to what his suspicious people had to say.
That brought her eyes down to the man he was interrogating, probably one of the strangest people she had ever seen. He was a bit shorter than the police officer and around his age, but Sunset noted the fear in his facial expressions, but not in the eyes he wore behind his violet sunglasses. His skin was a bright green color akin to that of a lime with messy orange hair that came with a couple of cowlicks on each side of his hair, making it appear like he had little horns or something. He wore an orange T-shirt behind a sparkling grass green vest, and a raspberry/violet jacket he had unbuttoned earlier since it was hot in the hospital. To tie it all up, he wore a necklace which hung from his nape, studded with three diamonds of different sizes.
Sunset watched the green-skinned man from her bed as he talked to the police officer, who nodded his head and said something back to him. The man responded to this with a nervous tone in his voice and hand gestures to emphasize his speech, sometimes gesturing his hands directly as her as if he needed to get a point across with the law enforcer. It seemed to work because somehow, the stone exterior of the law enforcer softened up a little. He even nodded a few times in some understanding.
Did these two somehow share some kind of history together?
Maybe the green-skinned man was a former perpetrator the police lieutenant put away a time ago?
Beep... beep... beep...
Hss... hss... hss...
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
While she watched the two men talk, Sunset spotted a doctor sporting a muffin-shaped afro come into the room, his bespectacled eyes glued onto the clipboard in his hand describing her condition. Opening the door, both the doctor and the muffled noises from outside the soundproof glass, the former shutting the door behind him, cutting off any other noise from the outside. After flipping the top page over, and after nodding his head a little to the understanding of Sunset's current condition, he turned to the girl in question and jumped a little.
"Oh! Goodness, I didn't know you were awake! How are you feeling?" the doctor cheerfully asked.
Sunset could only groan in response, not finding the strength to speak in complete sentences yet.
"...head... hurts..."
The doctor approached Sunset and carefully spread her eyelids apart with one gloved hand and held a pen-shaped light in the other. The light stung her eyes, but for some reason, the doctor seemed happy.
"Well, your pupils are dilating, so at least you're not suffering a concussion, which is a good sign," the doctor said as he took a pen from his coat pocket and updated the condition in his clipboard. "The headache might be a slight temporary strain against the light, but we'll bring you some water just in case you feel dehydrated. My name is Doctor Muffin Top, and I've been assigned to look after you until your recovery."
"Oh... goodie..." Sunset could speak a little clearer now, having found a little strength to speak in sarcasm.
"It is goodie, isn't it? No one would have a better privilege than to be looked after by someone like me," Dr. Muffin Top answered, oblivious to the girl's sarcasm.
In response, Sunset groaned unamused.
"I gotta say, thought, you've really caused a stir around this hospital,"
"I did?"
"You did. You were suffering from the worst case of hypothermia this hospital has ever seen," Dr. Muffin Top explained. "Your breathing was unresponsive and you heart rate was flatlining, so we had to defibrillate you three times until we could get a pulse, then we had to get you warmed up and changed into that robe. You're very lucky that gentleman in green outside saved your life. You would've been the youngest patient in this hospital to die from hypothermia had you not pulled through."
Sunset's first emotion she's felt since she woke up was surprise.
She turned her head, and her gaze fell back onto the green-skinned man sitting on one of the orange plastic-seated chairs outside her room. The police lieutenant was just speaking something unintelligible to the green man, something that made him rub his temples in slow circular motions right before he dragged his palms down his face at the same snail's pace speed. When the hands were dragged down past his eyes and out of his violet sunglasses, the man found himself exchanging a similar surprised glance to Sunset.
For a moment that seemed like it dragged on in minutes, the two shared their eye contact, studying their very features, never breaking their focuses for a single second, even with the police lieutenant talking to him. After Sunset fully studied that man a second time, she turned away and looked back to the afro-sporting doctor.
"That man... saved my life?" Sunset asked for clarification.
"Yep. He said he saw you lying in the snow on the way home, told us you were cold as ice," Dr. Muffin Top told the story. "He broke several road laws trying to get you here, burst through the doors while he was holding you in his arms, screamed out for a doctor, and you can see, we did the rest. I swear, I've never seen a grown man that age cry like that. You really spooked him shirtless like it was Halloween."
Sunset turned her gaze to the ceiling, staring at the ivory textures in deep thought.
Why had that man saved her life?
She wasn't worth the effort of being kept alive anymore.
That man didn't have the right to stop for her and take her away from the very much-needed departing from this life.
She hated him.
Sunset hated that green man!
He took her opportunity to end her life and threw it all away!
She curled her hands into tightening fists.
"Looks like your reflexes are still functional," Dr. Muffin Top quipped, still unaware of Sunset's plight as he once again updated her condition on his clipboard. "That's good. At least you're on the road to a full physical recovery by the end of the week. We'll have a psychiatrist come in tomorrow and see if you're on the road to a full psychological recovery."
Sunset answered this with another grunt.
When Dr. Muffin Top was finished with his recent update, he slipped his pen back in his coat pocket, and turned to Sunset with a smile. "Well, it looks like I'm no longer needed at the moment, but if there's anything you need, you just hit that button and a nurse will come up for you. Until then, I'll leave you to rest up a bit."
The door opened up, and the two turned to see the police lieutenant enter the room.
"I'm sorry for interrupting you, doctor, but can I have two minutes with her, please?" he asked in a young gruff voice.
"It's no problem, lieutenant, I was just leaving," Dr. Muffin Top said, turning back to the girl. "Just remember, if you need anything, just hit that button."
With that, the afro doctor walked out of the room, leaving Sunset alone with the law enforcer.
The man in question pulled up a stool that was obscured from Sunset's sight by the heart rate monitor and settled in with a sigh.
Sunset cast her gaze towards her right hand, away from the officer and away from the green man.
She didn't speak a word to him or to herself.
"Don't worry about the doctor. Despite his tendencies to be a little too optimistic and child-hearted at times, he's one of the best doctors anyone can find in his state," the lieutenant assured her. "He's patched me and my men up so many times, I've already gotten used to the tweezers and the stitches. It usually heals up in a couple of days until you don't see the stitches anymore."
Still, the fiery-haired girl continued to sulk in silence.
The lieutenant sighed. "Alright, perhaps we're getting off on the wrong foot here, so let's start over. I'm Lieutenant Shining Armor from the Canterlot City Police Department. Do you have a name?"
Still, Sunset kept silent to herself.
"Okay, you don't wanna tell me your name? It's fine, I imagine you must be shaken up over nearly dying of frostbite. I'll get right to the point. I received a call from my friend, the security guard who works here, that you were found on the highway nearly frozen to death, and that got me worried. Normally, when a person sees a body lying motionless in the snow, they assume that the body was either killed or left to die.
"What really caught my attention was how that man outside your room, who has a history of blending in with the wrong crowd and recently earning himself multiple driving violations by the way, would risk his life and a court settlement just to save your life. He told me that you sustained no injury which would have been a sign that you were either in an accident or assaulted by someone and left to die, or you were doing something so stupid like walking into the cold without any thermal protection. All I need from you now is to tell me your side of the story; tell me what you were thinking wandering in the freezing cold and everything that happened before then. That way, we can check his alibi out and see he doesn't appear before the judge."
Still yet again, Sunset said nothing.
She kept as silent as a monk, not even moving her lips.
Her eyes kept their sharp focus on her right hand, slightly curled up but not all the way.
Beep... beep... beep...
Hiss... hiss... hiss...
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Having waited for long enough for her answer, Lieutenant Shining Armor stood up from his seat, eliciting a sigh that was mixed with a combination of defeat, frustration, and impatience. "Listen, it's okay if you don't want to talk now, but I just thought it would've helped us all out if you cooperated with me. You just get your rest here, and we'll try this again tomorrow."
Shining Armor went for the door and gripped the handle over it.
"Could you bring him in here, please?"
Shining Armor turned his head back, seeing the girl not move her gaze, but her mouth instead.
"Huh?"
"The man... in the green," Sunset Shimmer clarified. "Can you let him in, please?"
Shining Armor looked a bit reluctant to follow the girl, but he thought that he would get the answers better from her.
"Uh... yeah. Sure. I'll let him in."
He exited the room, closing the door.
Outside, Shining Armor called for the green-skinned man, who stood up in acknowledgement. The police lieutenant beckoned him to come closer, so the green-skinned man approached him cautiously and listened carefully to his directions that came out to Sunset as both muffled and difficult to understand behind the windows. Shining Armor mouthed the words that seemed to ask the man if he understood, and the green-skinned man nodded fervently. So Shining Armor opened the door and allowed him in, then gently closed the door and sat at the seats outside the room and watched as the man approached the girl nervously.
The green-skinned man stared at Sunset for a prolonged period of time, frozen in place, his nerves all a-flutter as his mind jumbled with all thoughts of carefully planning his next course of action for fear of failing was at his record high. All he did while he stood paralyzed was raise his hand up to greet the girl and sound off a nervous "hi" from the back of his throat.
She still didn't say anything.
The man's eyes fell onto the same stool that Shining Armor used, so he nervously planted his seat on it, held his hands together in between his knees. He twiddled his thumbs around, and every now and again, he cast his eyes towards Shining Armor, who was watching everything happen in that room like a stone-faced hawk. He broke the silence with an awkward cough and fake throat-clearing.
"So, uh... I'm glad to see you're alive and kicking," the green-skinned man told her. His voice wasn't even like Shining Armor's; it was borderline young adult virgin with a voice that hadn't succeeded through puberty. "That's good... that's good. At least the only thing I have to worry about is appearing before the judge because I violated the rules of the road bringing you to the hospital. Sure, it doesn't seem fair for a hero like me to potentially have his driver's license suspended or revoked, but it's the law, and I can't really change it. Hopefully, they'll just slap me on the wrist, let me off with a stern warning, and put some demerits on my..."
"Why did you save me?"
The man immediately ceased his awkward conversation after hearing that single question.
"I'm sorry?"
"Why did you save my life before?"
Sunset's tone was a little louder than before.
The man rattled his head sideways, unable to comprehend what she meant.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to ask..."
"Why couldn't you have just let me die peacefully without bothering to save me!?"
The question, and its message now made clear, made the man jump out of his seat.
That in turn made Shining Armor jump out of his seat.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute!" The man quickly shot his hand out to the lieutenant, who stopped in his tracks. "You mean to tell me that you did wander off in the freezing weather just so you could kill yourself!?"
Sunset turned her head away shamefully, but she knew it was no use hiding it.
Her lips stretched into a widened frown as she covered her face in her hands. From behind the flesh of her palms, Sunset lost the urge to hold everything in as muffled sobs was heard as clear as day, as were her bodily actions as her shoulders were shuddering and her lungs bouncing achingly in her stomach. This brought the man to gasp, covering his mouth up as the urge to cry welled up inside of his stomach as well.
"Oh my goodness, you did try to kill yourself!" screamed the man at the horrible realization. "Why!? Why would you even do that!? Did something happen to you that would make you do that?"
Sunset denied this by shaking her head hard.
This denial, and the increase in her heart rate on the monitor was all the answer he needed.
"What happened? Talk to me!" the man begged. "Please, I can't help you if I don't know why you tried to commit suicide!"
Sunset sharply inhaled as she released another flood of tears, accompanied with the elegy of heartbroken sobs.
She wanted this pain to go away! That's why she wanted to freeze herself to death!
She didn't want to share her problem with anyone else!
They would turn her away like they did!
Spurn her wrongly like they did!
Leave her like they did!
Like they did.
...
"They... they left me!"
The green-skinned man's face softened up, but the sadness didn't fade.
"Left you? Who left you?" the man probed her for answers. "Was it your friends? Your family? Your love interest?"
"M-My friends!" Sunset cried, her voice partially hidden behind her hands. "They thought... they thought I did it... and they just left me...!"
"I don't understand? What did your friends think you did?"
Sunset sobbed even louder. At this point, she was starting to hyperventilate. "They thought... they thought I took their secrets.... and posted it online for the school to see! I tried to tell... to tell... to tell them I could never do that to them... but they didn't want to listen to me anymore! They just turned away from me... and I just wanted to... to... to end it all! They were my friends! My friends!"
The man quickly took a step back when the last thing the girl said came out as a shriek. "Oh, jeez, that's horrible! Why would your friends think that?"
"Because I was the biggest pain in my school!" Sunset cried, throwing her hands off of her face. "I tried to rule that school by turning the people onto each other because I didn't have any other friends! I ruled as the queen bee for two years, but then this girl showed up and she and her friends made me see how wrong it was! She had her friends... the friends who left me... look after me and teach me what it's like to be a friend! I honestly thought it was one of the best things to happen to me!
"But then this MyStable user 'Anon-a-Miss' suddenly showed up and ruined everything I worked hard to change!" Sunset tearfully continued. "My friends' secrets were posted online, they got picked on by the other students at school, and they thought that I did it because I was with them when they shared their secrets with me! And when they confronted me about this morning, I tried to tell them I couldn't but they wouldn't let me tell my side of the story! Then everyone started going after me because they all thought I was 'Anon-a-Miss!'"
"'Anon-a-Miss?'" The man suddenly remembered the news report he heard on the radio. "Wait a minute. Are you a student at Canterlot High School?"
"Why does that matter? It's not like I'm going back there anyway!"
"Were you 'Anon-a-Miss?'"
"NO!" Sunset barked, shocking the man. "That's what I tried to tell them! I was being set-up by someone who's out to get me, and now my friends don't want to see me anymore! They thought I was going to drive them apart because I already did the first year I attended the school! I know I deserved to be alone and punished for being the worst student at the school, but I didn't deserve to be treated this way! I didn't deserve to be disowned by my friends! I don't deserve to live with this pain!"
"And you tried to kill yourself over that?" the man asked. "What about your family? Don't they know you're here?"
"That's just it! I don't have a real family! My friends were all the family I had until they kicked me out!"
The green man was at a loss for words at this point.
Her friends... her family?
What happened to her real family?
Did she not have a real family?
If so, then why would her only family throw her out like this? It's inhuman!
"You don't know what it's like to be rejected by your own family for something you didn't do!"
There was something about her outburst that struck something deep within the man.
A sensitive nerve, one that he tried to keep buried deep and forgotten a long time, now unearthed by that girl's single exclamation.
His shock turned to firmness as he reached out and grabbed Sunset's wrists, pulling them away from her face, her visage contorted into sadness, and held her hands in his. "That's not true! I've known what it's like to be thrown out of my family for something that I didn't do, but then again, I would've been thrown out for things that I would've done anyway! What this cyberbully did to you and how your friends disowned you on the spot was wrong, but that's no reason for you to throw your life away in vain! You have a whole life ahead of you, and you think that freezing yourself to death is going to make it all better!? No, that's only going to make the pain all the more worse!"
At this, Sunset's face contorted into that of extreme anger. "What do you care!? All you are is just a goody two-shoes who thinks he can win over the cops by telling them of your heroics, even though you already have a criminal record!"
"Hey, that's not true! I may have been locked up, but that does not make me a bad person!"
"Oh, so you're just someone who's trying to get by, helping other people on a whim!?"
"I don't help people on a whim, I help them because I know they need it!"
"Well, I didn't need your help, and I didn't need you to stop me from ending it all!"
"I couldn't just leave you in the snow! I have an obligation to help others in the same position you're it!"
"But why!? Why didn't you let me die and be done with it all!"
"Because I know what it's like to be helpless! I know what it's like to be part of the wrong crowd and you lie in bed at night wondering what you were doing with your life! I've watched my family do horrible things in the past, things so horrible that even the mere thought of it still hurts me! I didn't have the courage to stand up and tell them what they were doing was wrong, but even when I did, it didn't change the fact that I was still a part of their family! You think it was easy watching my family get dragged off to jail and getting disowned where I stood was easy!? No, it wasn't, but at least my conscience be put at ease knowing I had to do the right thing, but even after that one good deed I did, everything started to fall apart!
"Every job I applied for in this city was rejected because of my record! No one wanted to be my friend! I had no easy way of making my monthly on my rent! I had no money to buy me food that would last me for another week, let alone another day! I wanted to end my life too! I tried to slit my own wrists with my kitchen knife, but I couldn't bring myself to do it! That's when I realized that killing myself wouldn't be the answer to my problems! It would've made them a lot worse! I wasn't close to my family, but at least there were some people in my life who owe me theirs, and committing suicide would've only added salt to their wounds!"
The man then got closer, holding Sunset's forearms firmly as she looked at him with the saddest look of hopelessness that he himself one wore in a legitimate sense. His eyes started to water, his breathing became labored with choking down his sobs, and his voice started to quiver and crack.
"Don't you see what I'm trying to tell you!? If you had gone through with killing yourself, then how do you think that would've made the people who actually cared about you feel!? Did you even stop to think about how they would've felt if they learned that you killed yourself!? The death of a loved one is one thing to be sad about, but it's another thing when a loved one kills themselves because they couldn't find another way to make it! They would've been sad beyond repair! They wouldn't be able to pick up the pieces! They won't stop mourning your loss because once upon a time, they were close to you and vice versa! What do you think what would happen to them if they can't move on!?"
Beep... beep... beep...
Hss... hss... hss...
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Beep... beep... beep...
Hss... hss... hss...
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Beep... beep... beep...
Hss... hss... hss...
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Everything else seemed to fall into silence.
Sunset stared at the man with widened eyes. Subconsciously, she turned her head to face the ceiling, her gaze staring down into space, deep in pondering.
Celestia.
Not just Principal Celestia who gave her another chance in this ugly little world.
Her Celestia. Princess Celestia mourning the loss of a pony she once considered a daughter.
The thought of the grief-stricken princess standing before Sunset's marked grave in the cemetery... one more headstone in the cemetery who were dead and laid to rest six feet under the dirt. She could hear her voice again, but only in the form of gentle sobbing while a delicate tear rolled down her cheek, dropping onto the recently patted dirt covering the coffin containing her empty mortal shell.
And Twilight... oh, dear heavens from above, Twilight!
Her one and only savior... her only friend from Equestria!
Princess Twilight Sparkle standing next to her inconsolable mentor and mother figure, silently sobbing into her chest while said Celestia pulled the younger distraught alicorn close to her and cried together with her. The two ponies in her life who actually loved her and befriended her in her life, the only two ponies who, plus a few others for support, bothered to attend her burial in her native homeland on a dark, dreary, rainy day.
Everypony's face dropped in sadness.
The tears washed away in the rain.
A single floral pot with a fiery lily sprouting from the soil.
Over her grave... because she killed herself.
The thoughts alone twisted something deep inside her heart.
Her face scrunched again as a new wave of guilt broke through the dam. Choking down a sob, Sunset broke her arms from the man's firm grasp and clasped her palms over her face again. She saw the reality of the sadness she'd leave behind for her loved ones and how it would've deeply affected them that those wounds on their hearts would never fully heal. She knew they would pay the price of her death with their sadness and guilt for letting it all happen. They didn't deserve this pain like she did! No one deserved it!
In the height of her pain, adding to the horrible realization of what her suicide would do to her friends and only family, Sunset only wept harder while the green-skinned man allowed her to pour her sorrows out like a flash flood. "I'm so sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry~!"
The man placed his hand on her shoulder. "Listen to me. There's nothing to be sorry about, okay?" he assured the girl as best as he could. "Sure, you've made some poor choices before, but that doesn't mean you're a bad person. I can tell you've tried so hard to change, and whatever happened to you was beyond bad, and I'm so sorry that you had to go through such a bad time. But ending your own life will never solve your problems. It'll only make things worse before they can get better. If there's anything you need, anything at all, then I won't be too far away."
What surprised the man next was his body being wrapped in Sunset's bear hug. He could feel her sobbing into his vest as her tears soaked through the fabric easily. "Thank you! Thank you so much for being here for me! I'm so sorry I tried to kill myself!"
"Hey, it's not your fault, alright?" The man gently broke Sunset's hug away and lifted her chin up for her to meet his eyes. "The only people who should be sorry is 'Anon-a-Miss' and no one else. They're the ones who spread those rumors and secrets, they broke up your friendship with your friends, and they drove you to kill yourself. I'll have Lieutenant Armor look into it and we'll bring them to justice. That much I can promise."
Sunset stifled a sniffle, wiped her eye, and smiled. "Thank you. That's all I needed to hear."
"It's no problem. I'm just looking out for the wellbeing of my kindred spirits."
The man gently laid Sunset back into her bed. "Here, why don't you get some rest? It's late in the evening, and tomorrow is a new day."
Now that he mentioned it, Sunset felt drained and exhausted. "Sure. That sounds fine."
"Good." The man stood up. "Now, if you need anything, I'll just be outside the room."
The green-skinned man walked to the door.
"Wait a minute."
He stopped just as he held onto the door's handle. He turned to Sunset's direction as she looked at him with half-lidded eyes.
"Before you go, I've never got the chance to learn your name," Sunset said, making the man smile.
"It's Thorax," he introduced himself.
"Thorax?" Sunset smiled as she slowly closed her eyes. "My name is Sunset Shimmer. It's nice to meet you."
Thorax's smile spread a little. "Likewise. I guess we're gonna be good friends from here on out."
Sunset chuckled a little. "Yeah, that's what I need the most..." she yawned. "A friend..."
With it, the fiery-haired girl quickly drifted off to sleep, initiating an eight plus hours' worth of rest to regain her strength.
Thorax exited the room and shut the door behind him. There, Shining Armor got up from his seat and approached him, expecting a full report from the convict-turned-protected witness. "I saw everything happen from outside. Did she say anything?"
"Yeah, and it's not good," Thorax sighed dejectedly, a frown drooping from his face. "The girl's name is Sunset Shimmer and she attended Canterlot High School. It turns out the reason she walked into the cold without any thermal clothing on was because she was trying to kill herself."
"What? Why would she do that?"
"It turns out she was a victim of cyberbullying that's been going around the school. This MyStable user, 'Anon-a-Miss' spread her friends' secrets all over the school and she was framed for that. Her friends broke off all ties with her, she had nowhere else to go and she tried to freeze herself to death. I haven't seen anything like that in a long time."
"Damn. And she's just about my sister's age, too." Shining Armor took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair. "Well, we'll have to put her on suicide watch just in case. In the meantime, I'll have to personally look into 'Anon-a-Miss' and see if we can dig up any dirt to see who's pulling the strings. I won't tolerate anyone who deliberately tries to make people commit suicide, let alone people her age."
"Um, Lieutenant?" Thorax called for the ivory police officer. "I'm not sure if this is 100% legal or not, but I think it's worth asking."
So Shining Armor listened closely as the green-skinned man asked his question.