//------------------------------//
// Broken 
// Story: A Study In Nonsense 
// by Professor Piggy 
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No. It wasn’t possible. It didn’t make any sense. None of it did, not even a little bit. They were her friends – they wouldn’t do that to her. Nopony would ever do that to a friend if they really cared at all. She was just imagining things. Just being paranoid again. That seemed so much more likely – it made everything okay again and she’d still have her friends and It wouldn’t hurt so much and maybe she wouldn’t wanna cry quite so much and soon Rainbow Dash would come and make everything better just like she always did.

Except…except that didn’t really work sometimes, did it? It had worked just fine when her friends had just been acting a bit off – all she’d had to do was remind herself that she’d jumped to conclusions like that before. But when she’d seen it for herself it was kinda a lot harder to put away. Even if the things she saw weren’t really there, sometimes.

Rainbow Dash leaned closer to the other trembling Pegasus, the smirk on her face matching the others perfectly. Slowly, ever so slowly, she leaned down and pressed her lips against Fluttershy’s own. As a light blue hoof began to trail slowly down her body the other Pegasus threw her forelegs around Rainbow Dash’s neck and…and…

Again. Again, when they had promised.

Pinkie Pie was dimly aware, as she hauled her heavy, tired body from the ground, that she had just thrown up. “I thought they were my friends,” she said cheerfully, to nopony in particular. Nopony would listen anyway. Nopony would care. “I thought Dashie loved me. Joke’s on me, huh? Pin the knife on the pony, double points if you get in her back!”

Slowly, for the first time in…she didn’t really know, she turned her head to take in her surroundings – and as she did a low, frenzied giggle escaped her. She’d run right back to where she’d first met Fluttershy. That same tree, her little cave still burrowed beneath it. The same river, where she kinda wished she’d left her – no, that wasn’t true. But she wanted it to be true. Just for a teensy tiny little second.

Of course she did. She was a bad pony.

She collapsed into the dirt, no longer willing or able to keep going. That was bad. They’d find her here. If they even wanted to, of course. It’d been a stupid place to run, but she was a stupid pony so maybe that wasn’t really a surprise.

If they didn’t come, somepony would. Somepony would drag her back and make her pretend everything was okay and that she could forgive and she’d smile and pretend to be happy and everypony else would pretend to believe she was happy just like they always did because they didn’t wanna have to deal with anything else.

But for now, she could just lay there. She could just lay there, and cry until she was empty. Until she couldn’t hurt anymore.

And cry she did.