The night that it happened, Angel Bunny was up late, as usual, only he wasn’t in one of his usual haunts. He wasn’t in his bed, mulling over Fluttershy’s agenda for the next day, week, and month, until he fell asleep; he wasn’t in Ponyville, gossiping in chirps and squeaks with Mortimer, that ridiculous caged brown bunny with the lazy eye; and he wasn’t curled up with a book inside the secret compartment underneath the cushions of Fluttershy’s couch, although that was where he was when it happened.
Fluttershy returned home from the party much earlier than she should have. The booming thunder and relentless rain masked the sound of the front door opening and closing, but Angel certainly heard her bedroom door slam shut, and the bolt thudding into its socket. His ears perked up, and he heard the breathing—slow and full of effort, getting louder, and with a shuddering whimper here and there.
He leapt out into the living room, kicking himself as he went.
From outside the door, still, all he heard was the breathing, and the occasional whimper, each one driving another nail into his tiny little heart. This wasn’t at all like her usual crying fits, or wails of sorrow, pleading for a friend between sobs. This was so much quieter, which made his stomach sink.
He bounded outside to find another way in. The wind and rain drenched him to the bone in a matter of seconds. He made the climb up the tree to Fluttershy’s window, only to find that it was locked too. It was here that Angel Bunny spent the rest of the night. It was here that he witnessed what a panic attack looked like.
It wasn’t pretty. She paced, and paced, and her eyes whirled around the room, dragging her head in snake-like motions, as if a monster was hiding in the corners of her eyes. Her wings were limp on either side, as if she no longer had the energy to hold them against her back. She stumbled a couple of times, and hid there under her forelegs, then suddenly would shout, ‘No!’ before jumping back to her hooves. Her room fell slowly into disarray. Books, picture frames, and knickknacks made their way off of their dressers and nightstands and onto the floor. She collapsed into bed at one point, but kept tossing and turning and breathing that strange awful breath.
Two elevated heart-rates, showing no signs of calming, beat on either side of the window.
Twenty minutes later, she was finished. She fell asleep, most of her sheets and pillows on the floor. Angel did the same. For the both of them, sleep was spotty, but it lasted until eleven in the morning the next day.