//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Too Quick To Regret // Story: Falling Down // by RoccoRoccs //------------------------------// A sky of amber and gold cast the last of the sun's waning glow across the country side road, gently lighting my way as I trotted alone. The soft rustle of leaves on the trees filled the air around me with gentle white noise, soothing to the ear enough but to me it was just another reminder that I was alone out here. By all accounts this was a perfect fall evening, one that lovers would spend atop a hillside while sharing their 'I love you's'. Oh how I miss days like that. I don't mean the kind of longing that you have for your favorite treat or a fun day you once had. No. I mean the kind of missing that is filled with regret for not appreciating it more, the kind that leaves you heart sick and hurting for hours on end and the mere thought. Irony is cruel in the way it works. Moments you wish would drag on forever, end in a blink but pain drags on for eternity. The landscape around me was all too beautiful to the unstained eye, but for me it was just a reminder. I had never been here by my own volition, but I had see this place many times. I sat in the same spot I always had, gazing across the train tracks into the far bank across. Even now in the full breath of fall, the beauty around me was tarnished with the memories of the day that everything changed. The golds and browns around me were black and choked with think smoke. The lovely grass was burning and covered with wreckage. Three years ago on this day marked the date of the 'Fetlock Train Derailment' that took the sleepy town of Fetlock from nowhere, to headline news. If only briefly. Normally stories like that burn on and on, deep into the headlines for weeks. But with everything that was going wrong with world, it was little more than a snip-it in the town paper. Ponies died in that crash yet it was swept away in a fury of wartime stories and propaganda. It was as if they had never even existed only a day after the crash. What about them? Did they just not matter enough? Were they considered an acceptable casualty? Did the rest of the world just not care enough to talk about it? For ponies everywhere I very much doubt they would give more than there two bits worth of pity towards what happened. Few ponies walked away from the crash unscathed and hundreds more lost their lives in the in fallout. The loose gravel below me flowed red with blood that day, the air filled with screams and despair while everypony choked on the sooty air. But the rest of the world didn't care, they left the families to grieve and the survivors to recover. Everything just... moved on. Those who didn't die went back to their daily lives and tried to cope as best they could. Those who didn't make it were left to their families to be mourned and buried. Everypony just moved on! But what about me? I was here that day. I was on that train with my wife and two kids! We were on our way back home to Ponyville from our vacation on the cost. Were we just more numbers that were going to be lost to the world? I know ponies hate talking about accidents but... fuck! We will drone on and on about the war, but we can not comprehend that live could be lost at random. I guess that is that all to familiar personality we all seem to share like a cutiemark, the same but always different. Sitting here now, with a trail of failure behind me, I can still close my eyes smell the burning fuel from the engine. My body shudders with every shock from the exploding rail cars as if I were being pounded by waves of fire. Waves of smoke move in and out of my blurry vision as I search the wreckage for familiar faces. My throat burns with every gasp I take for air as I use all my strength to toss broken bits of wood and metal in my desperate attempt to find them. My muscles burned and my right side was alight with pain from my own injuries, but I pushed forward. The fire was all around me, the heat was stifling and brutal, but in my last breath I lifted a door from the same car I remember being thrown clear of. Ponies like to lie to themselves about death, we all do it. We like to say 'oh there in a better place' or 'They went quick'. But there was no amount of lying that could take away the sight of my wife clutching our two kids laying there crushed. The most sobering moment of my life was the most pain I had ever felt. I threw myself to them, praying for miracles and hoping I was wrong. I held them close and... I cried. There was nothing left I could do but cry. Even the pain of loosing a wing, having it ripped from my own body by a window could not compare to that. It wasn't just pain, it was worse. It was just... emptiness. I curled up around my family and closed my eyes, praying to go quickly. Maybe if I was lucky, I could see them just one more time. I felt the world around me going black and I gave in to the pain. Two weeks later I awoke in a Ponyville recovery ward. I had been placed in a large room with other ponies who had some how managed to escape my families fate. Bandages covered my body, the smell of metal filled my nose from the fresh blood on them. The air was no longer filled with the roar of fire and explosions, but moans and groans of ponies who were slowly bouncing back from their injuries. It was like a clean break. I was at peace with it all ending, I wanted to be with my family again! How had I lost them and somehow managed to not die! I spent days without answers, not for lack of trying. My jaw had been wired shut. When The doctors finally had time to spare I got to learn the full extent of my injuries. Broken jaw, three missing teeth, detached retina that they 'somehow managed to fix', shattered rear hoof, burns over a 20% of my body and of course, a severed and lost right wing. I'm sure they did their best to save a pony who did not want to be saved, but the blame could not be placed on them. Honestly the blame could not go to anypony. The conductor was on his third triple shift and the track had worn and buckled from the increase in traffic, there was nothing that was going to stop it from happening. In a lot of ways, to me this was worse than if the train had been attacked by Zebras or something. At least then there would be a face behind the crime, but this was much more visceral. It was cruel and vile... It was random. My recovery was complicated by my own lack of will to get better, but due to the wonders of modern medicine, I somehow made a near full recovery. Now, sitting here, I have nothing but bad dreams and a small stump on my shoulder to remind me every day of what happened. There is not a single night that I don't replay the event in my head. Every night the last thing I see before I fall asleep, is what was under that last door. The hardest thing was not falling asleep, but waking up to silence. I would give anything to hear Lolly screaming at the top of her lungs at my son Cedar for trying to put his little brother in the dishwasher again. Things we take for granted or even hate are things that mean the most to us when they are gone. Every room in the house was filled with painful reminders of what once was. I hated it. I wanted to move but... I was to afraid that if I did I would let that memory go. The report came out not long after the funeral, I was told that none of them had traces of soot in their mouths and therefore they had passed near instantly. Where I was comforted in that they had not suffered, I could not help but wonder if I had been spared to suffer for them. If that be the case, when was enough enough!? It's not like I want to feel this way! I want to be happy again, I want to smile again without faking it. But how could I without them? Every time I came close to climbing out of my hole I would feel that cold grip loss clawing at my hooves, pulling me back down to that low place once again. I had tried so many times to just end it all, but each and every time I woke up hours later sick and sad. It had its own odd catharsis to it, as if the mere act of trying gave me just enough life to fight for a few more months. But it was a fleeting high, just another cruel joke. To live, I had to try to die over and over again. Crueler still, the real pain never came from the cuts, it came from the regret of doing it. Maybe somewhere deep down I still had part of me that wanted to live, some distant part of me that was screaming in pain from what I was doing to myself. That little will to live that refused to let me press hard enough or cut far enough. Maybe it was the ghost of my wife and kids in the back of my mind that didn't want to see me go out like that. Through the blood and tears, maybe there was something down there that still made me regret enough to not go through with it. I just want the pain to go away but I'm terrified that even death wont be enough to kill off the memories. The last time I tried I blacked out, but somehow found a towel to stop the bleeding just in time to pass out again. I was a victim of my own mind. Too depressed to live, too scared to die, but forced to keep trying. Regret kept me trying, regret kept me alive and regret was causing the pain of not forgetting. I stepped down the hillside and placed a hoof on the rail. The vague tremble of the steel bellow gave hint to what was to follow. I stepped forward onto the ties and looked down the long abyss that was the B-line and watched as the setting sun disappeared behind the valley the rails carved through the hills. The still air was growing louder, as if I were still standing in the fiery wreckage. Even the air seemed to vibrate as all the memories came flooding back. "Please... I don't want to hurt anymore." I spoke softly to myself. "Please..." My tears fell at my hooves as I craned my head back to take one last deep breath. The horn of the quickly approaching train was even muted by the peace I was feeling in the moment. There can be nothing to regret if I never had the chance. How fitting an end to this tragedy that it happen here. Maybe that was what I was missing, it needed to happen here, it had to. This is where I was supposed to die, with my family. The roar grew deafening as did that prickly feeling of regret, but this time there would be no coming too, there would be no dish towels and there would be no razors... Just ending. My hear pounded in my chest as every muscle in my body ached in restraint. Despite its wanting for me to run, I forced myself still. I could feel the heat from the trains light on my back, this was it. I was going... home. "Lolly... Can you hear me?" I cried as I waited for the darkness to take over. I pinched my eyes shut as the tear streamed down my face. My teeth gritted and my legs danced as my body tried one last time to save me from myself. Any second now. The earth shattering impact I had been waiting on had not come from my back, but my side. I felt my limp body crumple into a ball on the far hillside, knocking the wind from my chest. I cracked my eyes open to watch as the train that was meant to take me home shot by like a rocket. I tired to move but it felt like my body was being crushed. Did it... work? I was winded, but was I dying? I expected more pain than this. The train clacked along as its last car passed by, leaving me for dead on the hillside. I closed my eyes again and waited for that cold feeling of dying I had once felt before. But my peace was shattered by a hoof that was touching my cheek. "Lo... Lolly? Is it you?" I opened my eyes hoping to see the bright red mane of my long gone wife but I felt my heart sink when I saw... it wasn't her. But whoever this pony was, she was pissed. Well, scared? Pissed and scared? She was also yelling at me but all I could hear was a dull ringing in my ears. "What are ya? Stupid!?" "Huh?" I mumbled "You could have been killed ya moron!" Great... I lived... again. Why was I so bad at this!? "Hey! You pushed me!?" "Well somepony had to do it! Had I not you would be a greasy stain on the tracks!" Even better... Not only did I not die, I was freaking saved. I was so close and this mare just had to do her civic duty and push me out of the way. My heart was still pounding as I pushed myself back to my hooves. Wow this is embarrassing, it's one thing to come too in my house after something like this, but for somepony to actually save me... I was mortified. "Well... thanks." I said as I tried to 'remove' myself from the situation I had just cause. "HEY!" She shouted, freezing me in my tracks. "Why were you standing there all starry-eyed, talking to yourself on the tracks anyhow?" Her curt voice gave way to worry as she ran up to my side. "I was just... taking in the view." I said, thinking quickly for any excuse to keep from looking like a fool. "Uhuh... Then why were you crying?" "Look, I don't know you well enough to get into this. I just want to go home." "Well if you ask me, somepony who spends his time on the train tracks might not know anypony well enough to have somepony to talk to." "Yeah well, I guess that's my decision to make." I said as I started back up the hillside. But, like a flash, there she was again, right in front of me, this time trotting backwards. "So, where we heading?" She said playfully. She can not be seriously this naive. "Home." "Where's home?" "None of your business." "None of your business... Never been. Sounds fun." "Ok look... you can't seriously be trying to walk home with me after that." I said rolling my eyes. "Oh yes I can." "Persistent aren't you?" "Hey, somepony needs to make sure you don't stop to 'take in the view' at a dam or something." Ok, not naive... just a massive butthole. "Fine. Come if you like. But it's a hell of a trot to Ponyville." "I got time. So stranger... If we are going to be going all the way to Ponyville, I suppose you wouldn't mind indulging me in why you were trying to buy a ticket to the great beyond." "You know... for somepony who just stopped somepony from trying to kill himself off, you sure are..." Ah shit... "So you were trying to kill yourself..." Well there goes that cheerful attitude. This is way worse than that gay stallion saw the marks on my legs at the pharmacy. At least he knew well enough to leave me alone after a few tries. "...Yes. i was trying to kill myself. There, happy? I wanted to get hit by the train you pushed me out of the way of." I shouted. "But... why would you do that?" There it is, that freaking sympathy that everypony thinks makes things all better because a stranger cares. "Because sometimes pain doesn't go away. Sometimes you just want to wake up and not cry or hurt anymore! Sometimes you just want things to stop getting worse, even for just a damn second!" "But doing that won't take away things getting worse, it will only take away the chance for things to get better! Suicide is the WORST thing ever!" She said trying to put a hoof on my shoulder... but she was rather short for a full grown mare... I presume. "Hey how old are you?" "What does that have to do with..." "How. Old. Are. You? Maybe this is the last thing I want to talk about right now, eh?" "Oh... OH! Uh, twenty six." "YOU are twenty six... But you're so-" "Short? Yeah, I know. Nopony knows that better than me. But hey! That just means that I'm the perfect size to hug, am I right?" She said with a nudge. "Heh. I guess so." "See! There's a smile!" She said with a shiver as we set off again. "Yeah and less of you to keep warm." I said as I crawled out of my hoodie and passed it to her with my one good wing. "Won't you get cold?" "Nah, the cold doesn't bother me that much. I kind of like it." "You are one depressing buck..." She said as she tried to craw into my jacket, but for her, it was more of a tent. I did my best to tie it back to take up all the slack, but she still looked ridiculous. "You know, you don't strike me as the type." "What type is that?" "The sad mopey type." "Oh? And what prey-tell is the sad mopey type?" "Oh you know... They are always grey and wear black clothes all the time and look at the ground and junk. You on the other hoof, you are white and have a blue mane... not the mopey type." "Oh for the love... Looks don't make the pony." "I don't know... You look like you should be a happy buck!" "Yeah well, I guess happiness is only skin deep. Say, don't you have somepony waiting on you? Like, are they going to send search parties or something?" "Gee, way to put off the creepy vibe there bucko." "I just want to make sure I'm not about to be brought up foalnapping charges." "HEY! I'm a MARE! Not a FOAL! I'm fully capable of making my own decisions!" She shouted at me, but her anger was cut short by my smirk. "Oh... you're being an ass..." "I guess you could say I'm being a-" "Don't you dare say it..." She said giving me a shove. "Ok, Ok... That was too far. I'm sorry. Also, for mare of your size, you are uncommonly strong." "When you are as small as me, you have to be strong. When I was a filly, one day I woke up and everypony was bigger than me. Tends to lead to a lot of picking." "Can't say I know what you mean, but I guess I could understand." "Say, didn't your mom ever tell you that its rude to not introduce yourself?" "My name is Chance." "Hi Chance, nice to meet you officially. My name's Cherry... Cherry Shortcake." "WOW, How did you survive school!?" "It wasn't easy, but they never see the groin shot coming from that low." She said with a smirk. "Point taken." "So... Chance, tell me. Am I going to have a place to sleep in Ponyville? Or are you going to make a little mare trot home all alone?" "I guess you could sleep on the couch, but you better be gone in the morning." "That's cool. I can handle that." So the two of us trotted side by side towards town. Her trying to make me laugh, me faking smiles and chuckles and trying to make sense of what had just happened. Sure I was still pretty pissed off about not ending things the way I had wanted to, but even through my depressive thoughts, I had to admit that it was nice to talk to somepony. Even if it was for a moment. I had shut myself in for so long that I barely spoke to anypony without talking about my family. It actually felt good to talk for once about something other than the weather. But never the less, I will just ride this high like all the others and wait for the ax to fall again.