//------------------------------//
// The Beginning of the End 
// Story: Distant Flutter of Angels 
// by Zoltrioundz 
//------------------------------//

	Well here's my day so far: lost my home, my job, my friends, and everything I've ever known.

Still, I suppose my life could be worse.

Oh wait, forgot that I'm currently falling to my death. Guess it really couldn't.





Wind whistled through my ears, and I could feel it thrashing my mane back and forth. The chill of the altitude froze me to the core. My stomach churned at the rapid changes in direction.

All this in the moments before I could even open my eyes.

Once they finally snapped open, the sight that greeted them was not a welcome one. My first view was of the sunset sky, empty and nearly free of clouds. Then, as I found myself spinning, there was a momentary view of the horizon. What I saw stunned me: I was at an incredible height, way above a deep forest, with nothing but wilderness as far as the eye could see. Even the distant mountains looked untouched by pony hooves. But before I could take anything else in, I found myself staring upwards at the sky again as my body kept on whirling out of control.

I tumbled headlong through the air, cartwheeling madly across the sky. My limbs flailed wildly in sheer panic as I tried to do something... anything to stabilize myself. All thoughts of where I was, and how I got here slipped from my mind as the world twirled crazily around me. Losing all sense of direction, my head began to spin and I closed my eyes again to try and not be sick.

Despite my loss at what to do, my random flailing somehow managed to slow my spin. As it did, the nausea passed and I began to feel better. It was only then that I realized that despite the fact that my heart was beating a million times a second, and the sheer terror facing me, my thoughts were actually eerily calm. In truth, it was rather disturbing how I could be looking death in the face, and that while I was panicking on the outside, I was cool and collected on the inside. 

Still plummeting head over tail, I strangely found my mind drifting, obsessing about how different it was to fall in real life compared to how it had been in my dreams. Growing up in the clouds, in the way that I had, having nightmares about plummeting to my doom had happened all the time. Despite this, I had never really fallen in any major way before. I had been lucky. 

This time, I knew it was different. This was no dream, as much as I may want it to be. Not only because I could see the ground coming up to meet me, as I spun to face it,  but also since I was able to feel the air rushing past me, feel my mane whip and crack at the force. A dull roar filled my ears, the wind’s frigid blasts chilling my flesh to the bone. All in all, this was far more terrifying than anything my mind had ever been able to come up with before. Since I had never really fallen from any height before, my dreams had always been eerily silent and devoid of feeling.

Not so now.

A high pitched noise mixed with the roar of the wind, finally allowing me to focus again. At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was all alone out here, miles-high above the Everfree forest. It had to be the Everfree, of course, for where else in Equestria would there be absolutely no sign of pony life but in one of the only places where ponies fear to tread? Also, with my luck, where else would I end up? No, there would be nopony around for miles and miles. 

That’s when it hit me: I had to be the source of the sound. It wasn't screaming, even though logically, I knew I should be crying out for help or something by now. I knew that would be the sane thing to do. 

But sanity had no place here: the stress of today's events had pushed me past the breaking point.

Though my thoughts seemed clear and focused; mentally, I had snapped. On the outside, I looked like a raving lunatic, with my eyes bugged out and a crazed look on my face. The noise I was hearing was myself cheering loudly at the top of my lungs, as I fell towards the trees below. Any statements my cracked mind may have been trying to make were garbled, just complete and utter nonsense. All that came out was random whoops and hollers, and even that was nearly silenced by the roar of the wind. 

My train of thought paused at this point and I became concerned. Why couldn't I control my reactions? Internally, I felt so calm... collected. But I could hear myself yelling, feel my mouth stretching, contorted into a wild, crazy grin. My limbs still flailed, uncontrolled. My unblinking eyes, dry and sore from both being open so wide, and the beating of the wind pushing against them. Anypony looking at my face would think I had gone insane. 

Perhaps I had. It's amazing what your mind will do when everything falls apart in front of you.

My thoughts resumed, moving on from the fact that I could not control myself in the face of certain doom. No sense dwelling, I suppose. I started searching for a way out, for anything that could save me at this point. I knew I was alone out here, as anypony who was out in the middle of this forsaken place would have to be as insane as I appeared to be. 

No, help would not come.

Nonetheless, I took stock of my surroundings. There were no clouds nearby to land on, or to even slow my fall. Below me, peeking through the forest canopy, I was able to make out some water, a river, or stream perhaps, and what looked like a bog. However, even from this great height, I could tell that both were very shallow, as they were filled with boulders and trees. Not only that, I was falling between them, with no way to change my course. In the distance, miles away, there appeared to be some larger body of water, but without any way to get there, it made no difference. 

There wasn't a single survivable landing location below me. All I could see coming up to meet me was thick forest, that I just knew was filled with sharp, pointy branches. The dry autumn leaves caused the foliage to look terrifying, almost as if I was falling towards a surface covered in jagged, rusty nails. I shuddered as I had an involuntary mental image of myself hitting those trees. It was not a pretty picture.

I shook off this dark thought. Surprisingly, my head actually responded! Seems as if the length of the fall had a small upside: I was back in control! Maybe now I could take advantage of my overly clear mindset. 

My head moving freely now, I looked around again. I gazed further afield, but there was still nothing within sight. Why did I even bother? Anything useful would have to be nearby anyway. Sighing in the thin air, I kept thinking: Since there was nopony to save me, was there anything that I could do to save myself? I strained myself and tried to move my body, but it all just seemed so difficult. I found that not only was I alone, but also that I was completely drained of energy. I could move, but only just, every limb feeling as if they were made of lead.

My eyes sank and became unfocused. My train of thought derailed, crashed, burned. Not only was I out of energy, but at this point I realized that I just didn't care anymore. I had no will to fight. Nothing to live for. No reason to exist. 

As they cinched shut, my battered eyes finally began to tear up and I started hallucinating. Perhaps hallucinating was the wrong term, but with the state of my mind at this point, who can really say? Perhaps a better description is that I started seeing my life unravel behind me, and at the same time, feel the future fade before me.





Out of the darkness that enveloped my mind came pictures: jumbled images that at first were hard to place. Then, like a dam breaking, the memories came flooding back.

The first one that I recognized involved my mother and father. As happens surprisingly often, their names related to what they were good at. My father, Lightning Flash, was a genius at making the most spectacular storm clouds, and my mother would take the fluffy white puffballs and make amazingly beautiful sunsets. Her name was Violet Sunset, of course. Both were older pegasi, and their talents lent themselves to their positions in the cloud room at the nearby weather factory. 

In the scene, we were outside our little cloud house, sitting on a cloud bench, near the outskirts of Cloudsdale. When you live in the sky, it’s not surprising that everything is made of clouds. They were holding me close, their forelegs wrapped around me. Back then, I was still a young colt. I had just gotten my cutie mark, a white puffy cloud with an ornate sun peeking through below. The light beams coming off it were shaped like lightning bolts, each formed with perfectly straight lines. My parents were so proud of me: they knew that since my special talent was related to clouds, that it meant I would probably come work with them at the weather factory someday.

I was overjoyed: My parents had always worked there. It was almost all they talked about. And, for as long as I could remember, I had wanted to work there too. I loved the place; the grown up ponies there had always made it feel like a second home when I came to visit. Every day I would sit in our window that faced the factory, waving goodbye to my parents as they left for work. 

Little did I know that this would be the last day I would ever see them. 

I wallowed in my memories, thoughts going beyond the now fading image. They had left our home in Cloudsdale shortly after that scene, bound for the factory. They were never late for work: this would be the first and only time. Getting my cutie mark had been a big event in our lives, and they had delayed their departure to spend some time with me. Together we had planned a big party for the very next day. My mom kept calling it a cuteceanera, even though I begged her to just call it a party. I remember telling her that cuteceaneras were for fillies, at which she just laughed. Once they had nailed down everything I wanted at the party, they headed out... they loved their work almost as much as they loved each other, and loved me. 

They really did love me, I think. They told me that every single day. I just never believed that this would be the last time I'd ever hear it.

The scene changed to another still frame in my mind, from later that same day. In it was the foreman, a big grey pegasus who had taken me on countless tours of the factory over the years. He was knocking at my front door. When I answered, he looked down at me sadly. With a voice filled with sorrow, he reported to me that there had been an accident at the factory. Some kind of explosion that created a giant, uncontrollable storm. His voice caught in his throat as he broke the news: My parents had been lost to the storm. They had not been able to find any trace of them after the disaster had been cleared. They were just gone. Completely. Never to be seen again.

My mind darkened further and I choked back a sob. That had been the first time in my life I had ever cried. And instead of the comforting embrace of my parents, all I had was the foreman, who awkwardly put his foreleg around me and held me as I bawled like a foal.

Thankfully, the image swirled and changed, moving on. I saw myself on a stage, standing next to the president of the weather factory. I had been so small back then; he just towered over me, as did everypony. He had given a speech to the public, offering his condolences to everypony affected by the tragedy, though none were as affected as I. Sure, there was several other injured ponies, but only my parents had had the misfortune to have been right at ground zero. To have been wiped off the face of the planet. 

Flatly, he announced to a cheering crowd that as a company, they would give me a place to live, and provide a caretaker for me until I was old enough to live on my own. Behind the scenes, they also offered me a well paid job as an accountant. Since I was good with numbers, they had an excuse to employ me, and still take the credit for their generous act. 

Back then, I was alone for the first time in my life. But I was a smart kid, It hadn’t taken me long to realize that I had no relatives, not a single pony who cared for me. It came down to this, or an orphanage. The offer was a real public relations win for the company, which they sorely needed after the unexplained disaster. Also, I was going to be old enough to take care of myself pretty soon, I thought, and even though I knew that he was doing this for publicity, and not for my sake, I decided that this was much more than any orphanage could ever provide. 

So I took his offer, determined to make a life for myself at the factory my parents had dedicated their lives to.

Many more snapshots flashed through my vision, years of my life spent toiling in that office, and nights spent sleeping in the back bedroom. There were meals cooked in the kitchenette, showers in the washroom, the late nights studying yet another book on advanced mathematics and accounting. I could never explain why, but I had always loved math. I read everything I could on the topic, and unlike other things, like History class, everything I read just stuck with me. It wasn’t long before I was reading math texts for ponies far older than me.

Then there were the times I set aside for myself, reading a new novel, or making some art: The scenes all seemed to blur together. All they had in common was that the place was always kinda messy, with dishes in the sink and work files on every open surface. I lived alone, so I never felt the need to clean. I had nopony to impress. Despite this, I still tried my hardest for the company that had taken me in. 

My mind continued to trace my past, even without an image to go with it. My childhood had basically ended once my parents were taken from me. The other children had grown more awkward around me since the loss, and of course my boring job, which was all I did in my spare time, didn't gain me any friends either. It actually worsened to the point where it felt as if they were shunning me outright. To top it off, this one group of jocks who were about my age, Dumb-bell, Hoops, and Quarterback, would laugh and jeer as they flew around me. They made fun of anything they thought was a fault, pestering me and isolating me from the others until each time I finally fled from them. 

I would always run back to my home, my safe place. I retreated more and more to my sanctuary, leaving behind my old life, my old memories. Eventually, I just stopped trying. It wasn't as if anypony was making the efforts I was. I didn't have one pony at that school I could even call an acquaintance, much less a friend. Anypony that even tried was driven off by the bullies; nopony wanted to be near their target.

So I just stopped going. I had a job. I had money. I didn't need anypony. All I had now was my work, and I poured myself into it. I always tried my hardest and did the best I could. I learnt everything there was to know about mathematics, and the finances and inner workings of the company. It was a lonely life, but I made the best of things, and learned to love my work.

Another familiar scene warped into view. It was a few years later, with me sitting at the same desk, in the same office, in the same part of the factory. Nothing much had changed, but I had grown, and my skills had as well. I had drastically improved the filing systems and the efficiency of the company. They had never had a full time accountant before, at least, not one like me anyway. Profits had improved as a result, resulting in a major increase in the amount of bits the company was earning. My performance had not gone unnoticed: I saw myself smiling as the same foreman from all those years earlier knocked on my door, this time giving me good news: a letter showing how my monthly wage had increased again.

As the slide-show continued in my mind, more years continued to pass. Despite my inclination towards solitude, a few of the more recent scenes showed a gradual change, occasionally I was with other ponies. Eventually, through trial and error, I had managed to make a few friends. They were all older than me, other stallions who worked at the factory in departments near mine, but they were friends. We went out to expensive shows and restaurants, drinking, eating and having fun. It was all on my tab, of course. 

Now, this may seem silly, as I was an accountant after all, but I had my reasons. Since I had no expenses, to me, my income was disposable. If it made me happy, I did it. I craved the feeling, I hungered for attention, I did anything to get it. And so with my wage I paid for the drinks and entertainment, laughing along and enjoying my time with them. Things had changed; I no longer felt quite so alone. I was finally happy again.




For a moment, I half-broke free from my hallucinations, suddenly able to feel the wind rushing over me again. Wincing involuntarily, I gave my head a violent shake; I really didn't want to remember the rest! Struggling, I tried to open my eyes, but I was just so tired. 

So very tired. 

With my eyelids as heavy as lead, I sagged, defeated. Perhaps sensing my surrender, something changed in my mind. No longer was it content with just still-frames of my life; I found myself slipping deeper into my memories. My mind transitioned to the more recent events that had destroyed my life as I felt myself sucked back into the darkness.





At this point, things became sort of surreal. Instead of images from my past bringing back memories of years gone by, it was like I was watching the events unfold through my own eyes. But instead of just remembering it, I found myself feeling detached, separated. My view was clouded, greyed out, almost flickering, like a old black and white movie. And like the shows I had seen as a foal, it was soundless, almost deafening in its silence. It was as if these events had happened to somepony else, and I was just viewing them. 

Nonetheless, the sights I saw were familiar. The pony I inhabited was looking over my well-worn desk, strewn with papers. Idly chewing on the pencil he held in his mouth, he was studying a spreadsheet which lay open in a yellowed folder. It was an eerie feeling, like I was a ghost looking out the eyes of a stranger, as I watched him fill in the missing numbers and sign MY name at the bottom. Curious, despite myself, I began studying the scene. My eyes happened upon the date on the paper and a chill ran down my spine. It was from this very morning!

Knowing what was to come, I began to panic, trying to take some control over my host. I wanted to flee, to escape what I knew was coming; but soon realized it was useless as he just kept scribbling away, my desperate attempts unable to change the past. I was a prisoner in my own mind, reliving the memories, just along for the ride. 

Helpless to do anything, I watched myself idly open another folder and slide out a new document. My mouth went dry, for I knew I would never get the chance to read this one. I was about to be interrupted by the first in a series of events which would lead to where I was now: falling helplessly from the skies, forced to relive the torture of my final day.

My host suddenly looked up, towards the door, as if interrupted by something. Though I could not hear it, I knew what it was. 

The knock on the door that signified the beginning of the end of my life. 

The pencil dropped from his lips, and though I heard nothing as it clattered across the table, it was as if every bounce was a strike on a giant drum, booming in my head. With each impact, I shrank back, trying to distance myself from the scene. Nevertheless, I found I was unable to close my eyes, or even look away as my host walked over to the door and opened it.

The rest of the scene played out as I remembered it. My supervisor entered the room, and we sat at my desk. I found myself mouthing the words, the conversation still fresh in my mind. I almost choked on my tongue as I spoke the phrase I knew he was saying.

“I’m sorry Indigo, but you’re being let go.”

The rest of the memories washed over me. Surprised and in shock, I had began to stutter, but still managed to ask him why. Looking up at me sadly, he had told me that my job was being given to somepony new, a pegasus prodigy, who had demonstrated more ways to improve the company's accounting. Simply put, he was better than me. Also, he was somepony the company would not have to pay room and board for. I guess after all these years the public awareness of the incident had faded, and the company no longer felt it needed to be so generous. Almost before I knew it, I found myself on the street, without a home, and thanks to my spending habits, almost bitless.

My memories raced ahead, and the scenes sped up along with them. What happened next was pitiful, especially in hindsight. With my head almost dragging on my hooves, I went from door to door, asking each of my friends in turn if I could stay with them. I don’t think I will ever understand why, but as soon as they heard my story and that I was unemployed, and more importantly broke, each and every last one of them had some excuse for why they couldn't let me stay with them. Not one of the ponies whom I had called my friends offered me a single night to rest my head. 

As the last door was quietly, almost reluctantly closed in my face, an overwhelming feeling of abandonment came over me and I was unable to hold back the tears welling up in my eyes anymore. I was torn between wanting to buck their doors down and demand they be the friends I had always believed them to be, or just curling up in a ball and fading away. 

Unable to stand these feelings, I ran from them. Recklessly, I galloped blindly through the streets, between buildings, not caring, not seeing: a dangerous thing to do in a city in the clouds. I didn’t care. I just couldn’t face my friends or these emotions anymore.

Looking back, I’m tempted to say that running clear off the clouds might have actually been better for me. Instead, I ended up accidentally running headlong into somepony, knocking myself silly. I landed roughly onto my side, knocking the wind out of me for a moment. Gasping for breath, winded, I tried to blink my eyes clear. I opened my mouth to apologize, but before I could say anything, my voice left me as the pony I had hit began to speak, a familiar sound I had been glad to have avoided for many years. 

I involuntarily cringed, both in the memory and in my prison behind the eyes of my host,  as the tears cleared and we both looked up into the faces of the ponies who had persecuted me mercilessly throughout school, all those years ago.

That’s when everything changed again. Sound returned like a slap to the face, and with it’s return came the colors, the muted greys and blacks replaced by the full spectrum of light. The whisper of the wind, the bustle of the nearby marketplace filled my ears, but all I saw was the browns, oranges, and greys of the bullies who stood over me.

"Well if it isn't little Indigo SPLASH, running around town making puddles. Though I gotta say that making them with tears is new." This was followed by a short, brash chorus of laughter.

My host wiped his eyes and looked up at the unmistakable grinning faces of the group of pegasi jocks, far older now than the last time I had seen them. And then I heard my voice speak. "Dangit, Hoops. I don't need your horseapples right now. You know very well that my name is Indigo Flash and you also know that I haven't made puddles around town since I was a little foal. Grow up and go bother somepony else."

Nearby, Dumb-bell snorted. "Little touchy today, are we? All sad because you lost your cushy job? Or is it that you finally realized that nopony cares about you?"

Gossip spreads fast in a city full of ponies with wings, I guess. I felt myself glaring at him, defiant, despite all the evidence to the contrary. "You don't know what you're talking about. My friends will come around. They all have perfectly good reasons to not be able to board another pony right now."

Whatever bravado I’d had was crushed as he broke out laughing, with his companions following suit. "Friends? What friends? You mean those ponies you spent all that time around, paying for their fun? You actually thought they liked you?"

He sneered and leaned down towards me, still laying on the clouds where I had fallen. "Think about it. Did any of them ever ask to spend time with you of their own free will, or did they just let you pay for their fun? Did any of them ever ask if you wanted to hang out? Did any of them ever even ask how your day was?" He snorted and raised his head, wings flaring, looking down at me with contempt. "I bet they didn't. Everypony knows that you were loose with your money, and now that you don't have that any more, nopony will want you around."

Hoops chose this time to chime in. "Yeah, heh, you've always been an outcast. You've never fit in here, and you never will. Maybe it's time you got the hint and go make your splash elsewhere, eh Puddles?"

I was sucked into the scene as I relived this terrible moment. My jaw dropped as my entire world fell away beneath me. I wanted to deny it, to try and stand up for myself, but I couldn't think of anything, find any example that would prove them wrong. Like being doused with a bucket of ice water, I suddenly came to the realization that everything that I thought I knew about my friends and my life was false, and not only that, but everypony already knew. Everypony except me. 

My mind went completely black with overwhelming despair and anguish. 

All I could hear was everypony laughing at me, their sneer and taunts echoing in my skull. 

All I could feel was cold hooves running down my spine, causing me to shiver uncontrollably. 

And all I could see was endless doors slamming shut in front of me, with the ponies who I thought were my friends looking away as they shut me out of their lives.

…

That’s when something exploded.





The smooth motion of the scenes playing in my head abruptly halted. Despite their weight, my eyes snapped open, so fast that it hurt. Tears fell from my eyes as my memories disintegrated, swept away in the wind. All I could remember after that seemed to be shrouded in a purplish haze. 

What I did see seemed broken, detached. Random pictures that I could barely make heads or tails of. In one, I saw the heads of the jocks... but only their heads, lying on the clouds with me standing over them. I couldn't see them clearly through the fog: everything was blurred. All I could see was their mouths and eyes, the former screaming silently, the latter wide in terror, both unmoving in the image in my mind. 

Then it changed, and I saw my home, in the process of being ripped to shreds by invisible claws of flame, the furnishings and files burning as they swirled around the room. The acrid smell of smoke assaulting my nostrils as the heat of the fire pushed me backwards, out of the room.

Next I was confronted by a crowd of pegasi, some I had once known, grown up with, and even those I had called my friends, though there were others whom I had never met. They were lined up in ranks against me, staring me down with deadpan eyes. They marched towards me in lockstep, and I was fleeing from them. I found myself pressed against a solid cloud wall, screaming, trying to press myself through it as they closed in.

More disjointed scenes: a reflection of myself as I flew over a lake. I was flying at incredible speeds, faster than I had ever flown before, faster than I had thought I was capable of. I could feel the tears streaming from my eyes and trailing behind me, creating a trail of ripples in the lake below. My face hurt, and in my reflection below, I could see that it was contorted into a look of absolute suffering and despair. 

I saw endless mountains and plains, lakes and rivers, forests and valleys, saw myself going farther and higher than ever before. The earth shrank below me until I could no longer see it, and I kept going until I could no longer feel it, or anything else, anymore. I rose until every breath was a labor, until the very air tried to freeze my bones. It was then, and only then, that the haze finally faded from my eyes and I came to a stop. All my muscles locked up painfully and I cried out, but there was nopony to hear me, nopony to care. 

So high that I could barely fill my lungs with air, with my very life essence drained, I dropped from the sky above the vast Everfree forest. 





Numbly, I wiped the tears from my eyes as I returned from my reverie, finally free again from the tortures of the past day. I looked down towards the trees, which had grown several sizes since the last time I had been able to look and found myself wishing that all this would just hurry up and be over. I was so tired, tired of everything, and I knew that I could not even slow my fall even if I wanted to at this point.

Sighing again, I twisted my head around to gaze mournfully at my smooth, bare back and found myself wishing, not for the first time, that I had been born with wings.