//------------------------------// // Beta // Story: Insomnia // by Perfectly Insane //------------------------------// Pinkie rarely thought about the rock farm, not if she could help it. She'd spent the better part of her foalhood there, and hated every second of it right up to the sonic rainboom. There were so many better things to think about—like her family. "Pinkie! Move your fat flank and stop prodding at every rock that sticks out of the walls. I know you know better." Family being the reason she was at the farm today. After years of persistence and promises, Pinkie got far enough into Limestone's decades-old emotional barriers to convince her to use the vacation days she had stored up to occasionally leave the dismal farm she called home. In exchange, Pinkie had to come back to the farm whenever Limestone asked for help, with no complaints.  Really, Pinkie suspected that Limestone actually missed her and was desperate for company whom she could ask about the outside world—not that she'd ever admit it. Even Cranky wasn't as stubborn as her. "Sorry, I guess I'm still used to checking all the rocks for gems. They're just all so…" Pinkie rubbed a hoof over a rock jutting out of the wall, trying to remember how Igneous taught her to tell if they were hollow or not. She never quite got it, spending hours at a time on the field inspecting all the identical rocks. Sometimes she'd get lost and cry, or just cry out of sheer frustration that she couldn't find any gems like all her sisters could.  "Gray." "Everything's gray here; I'm gray." Limestone put her hoof against her chest as if to point to herself. "You were used to it once." She glanced at Pinkie with a raised eyebrow, a lantern hanging from the collar around her neck. "I don't think I was ever really used to it." Pinkie caught up to her sister, slapping her hooves against her cheeks to cheer herself up. She reached into her saddlebag,  checking to make sure the oil, matches, and the spare lantern were still in there and ready to go. Her 'work' today was to have all that stuff in case Limestone's lantern ran out of fuel or stopped working, which wasn’t likely to happen considering how thorough Marble tended to be in maintaining them. As menial a task it was, it was all she had to do today and made it easy to talk to Limestone while she did it. There was no doubt in Pinkie's mind that was what Limestone wanted.  "So, I heard you got a coltfriend." Limestone broke the preceding silence with a clearing of her throat. "Cheese Sandwich, right? How'd you guys meet?" "Ohhh." Pinkie stopped her energetic bouncing, nudging her shoulder against Limetone's and wiggling her eyebrows. "I see what's going on here. You got your eye on someone, Limey? Is it that blacksmith you talked to about getting better tools? I should have known the macho-earth pony's your type."  "Who, Red Iron? Gross. He's too much like Father." Limestone stuck her tongue out her mouth. "No, it's just that you've got a coltfriend, Maud's got a coltfriend, and Marble had a crush on a stallion that she's still getting over." Her hooves dragged against the rough ground making a muffled pulling sound before she shook her head and made herself stop. "Besides, Father and Mother are getting old. They've got maybe half a decade before hard work becomes, well, harder for them, and the workload on me and Marble is just going to get worse. I'm the oldest and the future of the farm is my responsibility, so I have to be thinking about kids of my own sooner or later. Might as well start now, right?" "Limestone." Pinkie's signature grin fell into a worried grimace. "You know you don't have to have any kids if you don't want to. They're supposed to be something you gotta have for yourself, not so you can forc—" she bit her lip, trying to think of better wording. "Have someone to inherit the farm after you. If you need others to help keep the farm going, you can always ask me or Maud." "And, what, pull you away from your perfect lives so you can be miserable with me for a few days until you go back to your friends?" Limestone didn't even try to hide the thick layer of bitterness in her voice, tightly clenching her jaw and furrowing her eyebrows. "No thanks. I'd sooner spend Igneous' couch fortune he thinks we don't know about than drag you here every other month. Especially with how busy you must be as an Element of Harmony and all that." "Nah, nothing's been happening since Cozy tried to take over the world, so I'm not really busy with anything other than parties. Besides!" She wrapped a hoof around Limestone's shoulder, embracing her in an awkward yet intimate side hug. "You're family. You know Maud and I are always happy to help our family, it's no biggie." "Yeah, yeah. That's what you always say. I'm not blind and deaf, you know. I can tell how you act here when you're not talking to one of us." Once again, Limestone shrugged her off, adjusting the lantern on her neck as she stretched. "We've arrived. Put your safety stuff on and stay behind me." "Limestone, I'm not—" Pinkie paused as she reached into the saddlebag for a mining helmet and goggles. Somehow, despite her mane being bouncier than most rubber, she managed to get the helmet on her head. "Ok, yeah, coming here makes me a bit sad. Everything's so dull and dusty and—" She stopped, closing her eyes and recalling the countless days of numbing labor. Sun shrouded out by gray clouds, all while she searched gray rocks for gems that would have given her just a taste of actual color. Not that it mattered, since all that waited for her after a day of work was a gray rock-soup supper.  "And gray. But it's worth it to spend time with you." "No, it isn't. I'm not—" Limestone froze, standing with her front hooves pressed against the dirt wall. "I don't want you to suffer for me. I'm not worth it." "Of course you are." Pinkie moved forward to hug her, only for Limestone to tense up and sharply suck air through her teeth. She pulled back her hooves, grimacing as she tried to come up with something to say that'd make her feel better. "I love ya, Sis." Limestone flinched, her cheeks darkened as she fidgeted and muttering something that vaguely sounded like 'love you too'. The awkwardness after that grew more tense. Pinkie tapped her hoof against her chin, trying to come up with something to say as Limestone's earlier question repositioned itself to the front of Pinkie's mind. "Oh yeah! We met at a party! Well, I meet everypony at parties, but this is one he threw instead of me! This wasn't just any party, either. It was huge! Cakes, balloons, and even inflatables. It impressed me." "Who? Oh, Cheese." Limestone continued mining, resuming their conversation with only a slight pause. "A stallion after your own heart then if he throws your brand of party." "I know! And get this: he started throwing parties because of me! Isn't that serendipitous?! Then we got into this whole goof-off, and I realized how crazy I was about the whole thing and we became best friends! He gave me Boneless, and then he left to throw other parties." "'Boneless?' Is that what he named his junk or something?" "Limey!" Though Pinkie's tone was intentionally chastising, there was a hint of a smile on her face as she held back a snort. "No, it's a rubber chicken. He got it at my first party for me to remember him by; it was really sweet. "Oh, so he gave you his fake cock." That time Pinkie failed to stifle a chuckle, covering her mouth and shaking her head. "You're worse than Rainbow." "I doubt that. Last time we talked she told me a joke so dirty I felt like I had to clean my ears afterwards." Limestone paused, hitting a particularly sturdy vein of granite. With a grunt, she shattered it into jagged shards. "That does sound nice. Is that when you fell in love with him?" "Probably. I don't think I realized it until after I visited him at The Amusement Factory. He took a long sip from the depresso espresso, and couldn't laugh! So I helped him cheer up! After that, he started cheering up everyone in Equestria. He's almost good enough to replace me!" "You weren't worried he'd replace you?" "I was at first. Not anymore, no one can replace me! I'm too Pinkie for that." "No adjective describes you better." The sarcasm, while obvious, was also well meant. "Speaking of assuming the mantle… Have you thought about kids? I know you love those 'bundles of shining joy' the Cakes have. Remind me to hire you as a nanny when I have some." "Will do, I'm pretty cheap; you'd only have to pay me in hugs!" Pinkie was about to embrace her to demonstrate, only to feel a stray rock from Limestone's path of destruction shoot past her ear. Limestone's occasional grunting made it clear she was more involved with her work than affection. "Later, I take payments up front. Thinking about them, yeah. We haven't really had a chance to talk about it though; Cheese has been busy setting up the next line of pranking toys.  He's even asked me to be the 'assistant consultant toy and prank item supervisor', which is a lot of words for just basically somepony who comes up with toy ideas. I asked Rainbow to help since she's so good at pranking, but apparently she's too busy training the next generation of Wonderbolts or something lame like that." "Fantastic. Now I know what she’s going to brag about next Winter Wrap Up." Limestone's digging decelerated, then ceased entirely. She swept aside her bangs, huffing a sigh. "The soil is soft around here." "Doesn't that mean we're getting closer to the surface?" The ground was less like dirt and more like partially dried cement. Pinkie firmly pressed her hoof, stamping the ground with her hoofprint. "Yeah, but I've been digging straight this entire time." Limestone narrowed her eyes. "I think. Maybe we're near a cave?" She resumed drilling through the rock at maximum velocity—fast enough that Pinkie had to bounce like a ball to keep pace.  "What about Maud? Is she doing well? We don't talk as much as we used to." "Oh yeah, she's doing super! Mudbriar moved in with her recently. Which, you'd think would mean we'd see him in town more, but apparently he has everything he needs in Maud's cave and doesn't really leave if he can help it." "Good for them. Does she plan to bring him to the farm and introduce him to Mother and Father? I know their approval means a lot to her." "Yeah! She's planning on visiting with him in the falLLLLL!" The ground beneath Pinkie caved in as she fell through. She plummeted, her voice contorted into an unrecognizable shriek in her throat, which was abruptly interrupted by her sudden stop.  Darkness encompassed her vision, above shone the dim light of Limestone's lantern—a single, lonely beacon of salvation. "Pinkie!" To Pinkie's disoriented senses, her sister's panicked shout sounded distant. A throbbing pain pulsated in her head, causing her to count each breath to make it just a little more tolerable. "Are you ok? Did you break anything?"  "Ugh." With a groan, she got up one hoof at a time. Carefully putting weight on each one before finally standing up. "I don’t think so? If I did, I won't be feeling it until tomorrow." While Pinkie could see herself thanks to Limestone, anything in front of her might as well have been invisible. She reached out into the shadowy darkness before her, waving her hoof around and finding nothing. It was like playing a game of pin the tail on the donkey, except she couldn't take the blindfold off and there was no one to give her directions.  "Alright, that's good. I—" There was a crumbling noise as Limestone leaned forward, causing specks of dirt to fall into Pinkie's face and mane. "Can you light up the spare and tell me what you see? I need to know if you're in a cave or what before I hop in." "Yep!" Pinkie shook her head back and forth, striking a match from the box and igniting one of the last lanterns. The inside of wherever she found herself was shrouded despite the light, and held next to nothing aside from a few rocks. After half a minute of rigid silence, she spotted an end. "It's not a cave. There's nothing in here, it's more like a room. Actually, sort of reminds me of Dad's shack after he was cl—" She was wrong. There was something down here.  It went unnoticed at first, being such a faded white it bordered on gray, blending in perfectly with the bland walls and rocks. Once the lantern had illuminated exactly what it was, the figure became obvious to her. The ribs stabbing upward resembled some kind of twisted stalagmites, tattered pieces of cloth clinging to them that had long lost their color. Eye sockets that, regardless of being empty, were staring at her. Begging to be saved, not knowing it was far too late.  Somepony had died down here. "Limestone, there's a body." A brittleness etched itself into every word she'd uttered. It didn't scare her, but seeing somepony's corpse just lying in some middle-of-nowhere hole was unsettling to say the least. "A body of what? Water? I guess I'm glad we didn't start a little lower or else we'd be flooded right abou—" "It's a corpse. Somepony's corpse." "Oh." Pinkie kept waiting for words of reassurance, for her sister to tell her something that would make her feel better like she always did when they were younger. A joke, a single line of compassion, something.  Only for an unbearable silence to take its place. "Please get me out." Pinkie didn't recognize her voice as her own. So weak, so brittle, so small. She hated it. The lack of noise amplified every one Limestone made: the awkward shuffling of her hooves, the way she loudly swallowed. Even her ragged, deep breathing might as well have been right beside her ear. "I can't." Her sister's voice cracked, shattering her façade of composure and competence. "If there's a pocket, that means the structural integrity of this entire place is in question. Going in one wrong area could cause a collapse and leave us stuck under a mountain of rocks with no one coming to help us for hours. We'd be just as dead as th—" "Can't you get me a ladder?!" Limestone took far too long to respond, leaving only passing seconds of nothingness. Passing seconds came with growing fears. Murmuring that somehow, the body would come to life and hurt her in some way. Or that she'd get stuck down here with them, left to her own demise.  An eternal party of two. She couldn't stand the thought of being down there a minute more. "I will. Thing is—" The pauses between Limestone's words were agonizing. It was clear she already had in mind what she wanted to say. Something was preventing her from just outright saying it, and waiting for her to articulate it was torture. "I didn’t bring one with me. The closest one is at the farm, which, even if I go full throttle, will take me at least five minutes to get there. Five more minutes to get back. So." She trailed off, unable to say what both of them already knew. "You'd have to leave me for ten minutes." Pinkie couldn't stand that. Couldn't stand that their work, which was really just an excuse to spend time with each other and both of them knew it, turned into this. Stuck in somepony's tomb, with only a single light source, sore hooves, and a saddlebag that was suddenly much heavier even though it had less in it.  "Are you going to be ok?" The gruffness of Limestone's voice did little to mask the way it shook. "I think so?"  She wanted to close her eyes, to sleep while someone else made the problem go away so she wouldn't have to deal with it when she woke up. Thing was, if she did that every time there was a problem, Equestria would have fallen at least a dozen times. Granny Pie had taught her all those songs exactly for situations like this, and she was the last person Pinkie ever wanted to disappoint. "I don't really have a choice either way. Just." Pinkie closed her eyes, blocking out everything except for her own erratic heartbeat. The stale smell, the sight, the lack of sound, all didn't exist for those precious few seconds of mostly darkness when she counted each breath. "Hurry. Please." "Will do, just stay put." Limestone groaned, muttering something to herself. "You can't go anywhere anyway. Nice job, Limestone. I'll be right back." Her rapid hoofsteps got more distant by the second, inevitably becoming nothing more than echoes. Soon enough, not even that. Leaving Pinkie in a parasitic pit, sapping all noise in this hollow trench with silence in its wake. When her heartbeat didn't resemble the music that often played at her parties, she opened her eyes, finding the lantern had been left in The Skeleton's direction. The strangest thing was, she couldn't look away from it. It revolted her, more than any failed pastry or even those cupcakes Applejack made. In spite of that, her head and hoof were locked in its direction. Paranoia made its home in her ears, informing her that the very moment her attention wasn't on it, it would move towards her and… And what? Clack its teeth at her? Slap her with its decomposing hooves? The absurdity of those worries became more obvious the longer they hovered in her mind. She'd run into things much scarier than a skeleton; most of those things at least had claws or something that could actually hurt her.  This? This was gross and scary, sure, but it couldn't actually do anything even if it somehow got up and moved. The best thing she could really do was shine her lantern somewhere else and pretend that it wasn't there.  "So, giggle at the ghostly."  The song had brought her comfort so many times, and had even helped save Equestria from eternal night in a roundabout way. It would be something she'd teach her foals to get through all the scary shadows and monsters under the bed, and something she should start teaching Pound and Pumpkin sooner or later. "Guffaw at the grossly, crack up at the creepy!" Gradually, she moved the light away from the cadaver, and shone it on the wall behind her. Pinkie let out a sigh of relief once the last bone was out of sight, bringing the lantern around much faster and painting a canvas of white on the black wall.  It'd been far too long since she'd practiced her shadow puppets. She had a chart somewhere that she'd started working through, but only really got to show them off during camping trips. Thanks to her fantastic memory, it was as clear to see as a picture hung up in the lining of her brain.  With a flex of her hooves, she started with the basics: a cat! Fortunately for Pinkie, Rarity had one and let her use Opal as a reference when she was getting stuck on it. Just as well, Applejack let her use Winona for the dog and Twilight owliswhat'shisname for the bird! The only struggle would be anything more complex like rabbits or monkeys. If only she had hands like Lyra often talked abo— Pinkie's ears flinched. Something moved. There was a rattling noise behind her, right where The Skeleton was. Pinkie held on desperately to the lantern, a sickening chill went down her spine. She felt stuck, incapable of moving a single inch of herself that might put in view whatever was there. It couldn't be the corpse. Corpses didn't move. That was what made them corpses.  So then what moved? Did she imagine it? Was her mind playing tricks on her? It happened before when she was afraid her friends didn't like her anymore. This was a very different, and much more potent, type of fear.  Or, maybe, she was just going stir crazy. How many minutes had passed? One? Five? An hour? She couldn't tell, she'd never been somewhere like this. No light, no sound, no way to know how much time gone by. Something could have gone wrong with Limestone, the ladder might not have been where it was supposed to be and she was trying to find one. Who knew how long that could take. "H-hello?"  Nothing responded. Of course nothing responded. Nothing else was there with her. It must have been something hitting the ground, something had shaken loose from her dropping in. That must have been it. Then why did she have this aching desire to check the body? To know with unwavering certainty that it hadn't moved? The darkness was getting to her, the not knowing, the lack of reassurance or any sound.  "Crack up at the creepy." Like a mantra, she continued the song. Only for no comfort to come, no alleviation of her worries; she was still scared.  "Ok Pinkie, just take a peek at the body. Like raising the blindfold to see how far away you are from the donkey: one glance and that's all you need. Whoop it up with the weepy!"  After forcing her body to move, she finally broke her hooves free from the unseeable glue that kept her stuck in place. The lantern creaked with very little movement; just her luck she'd pick the rustiest lantern Marble hadn't oiled yet. She gritted her teeth, clenching them painfully tight as her muscles begged for her to relax.  In a frantic swing, she pointed the lantern to the spot she'd found the body. Only for nothing to be there.  It wasn't there.  It wasn't there.  It wasn't there! Only rocks took its place, not even an outline to inform her it was there in the first place. Was it ever there? Maybe, in her worry, the rocks looked like a body. If she squinted her eyes just right, it somewhat resembled bones in the proper light. Tilting her head, she could sort of see it. Of course, she could have been trying to convince herself that was the case. It was far more comforting for Pinkie to believe her eyes had tricked her into seeing a corpse, the alternative being that it wasn't as dead as they tended to be and had moved whenever her attention was off of it for a few seconds.  Pinkie couldn't even bring herself to say the next lyric of the song, holding her breath and waiting for that rattling noise again. If she heard it, then she knew it'd be real and that she hadn't imagined it.  It was hard to say which possibility scared her more.  She brought the lantern over the rest of the pocket, scanning it once more just to make sure. Nothing had changed, not a rock out of the many had fallen from how she saw them just a few minutes ago.  With the relief came a sapping of whatever energy she had left, collapsing onto the ground with the lantern beside her. "Ohh, Pinkie. Better check under the couch because you are losing your marbles!"  A raspy chuckle slipped out as she rubbed her eyes, letting them close as she realized how tired she really was. By now, she'd usually have enough pastries to keep her going, but the closest thing the farm had to that was a salt lick.  All she had to do now was try to keep herself preoccupied. The matches weren't exactly something to play with, neither was the safety gear that was just annoying to her now that she wasn't moving around and had Limestone to keep her distracted. Pinkie took off the helmet and glasses, fitting them back into the saddlebag and letting her mane finally free.  She was content to sit there, waiting for Limestone to save the day like her knight in shining mining gear.  If it wasn't for another rattling sound.  Pinkie's eyes sprang open, freezing at that growingly familiar sound. It was closer this time, eerily so. She frantically put her hoof back under the lantern's handle, scrambling to get on her tired hooves again as she searched desperately for the source. The room was still empty, except for that sound. Something moved out of the corner of her vision. Something pale white, and not dead.  It was above her, blending in with the dozen or so stalactites that dressed the top. Its ribs stabbed into the roof, hanging from it like a ceiling ornament. It didn't shift an inch at first, as unmoving as when it was on the ground a few feet away from her.  Then it started crawling.  Its bones scraped against stalactites and rocks; the noises with each movement were as grating to hear as it was to watch. It was undeniably coming towards her, or the light like a moth from Tartarus.  Pinkie could only watch in abject horror, trying not to make any noise at all. A coldness stuck to her very bones, leaving her muscles rigidly held in place. She'd seen so many things since that Summer Sun celebration: a tyrant made of shadows, bugs that stole the faces of loved ones, a child that wanted to steal magic from the world. This was a far cry from any of that, carrying something so innately disturbing and wrong. All at once, it yanked its ribs out, dropping in front of her with a light thud. Pinkie yelped once it hit the ground, watching it splay and remained unmoving. It stayed that way for a minute, and she desperately hoped that wouldn't change. It did. With a trembling effort, The Skeleton got to its hooves with the same persistence, that rattling noise so painfully loud now that it drowned out her own thoughts. She held the lantern in place, trembling so powerfully the handle jiggled on her hoof and threatened to slip off. It fell on its side, left displaying the corpse. The patches of flesh just beneath the flaps of clothing that had faded long past any color that could be made out, clinging to the bone in bunches.  Not on all four of its hooves like ponies did, instead The Skeleton stood on its back legs, quivering with the effort to stay that way. Its front hanging limply to its sides, its entire body wobbling as it struggled to stand with no muscles or tendons. It didn't walk towards her at first, staying in place and staring in her direction with its eye sockets. Celestia, how did it know where she was without its eyes? Then it began approaching her.  Every step took noticeable effort and care, like it was a marionette being controlled by some invisible strings. Pinkie tried moving away, shaking her head back and forth with her mouth hung open as she attempted to make any noise other than helpless croaking. It didn't take her long for her to hit a wall, pressing every inch of her body against the dirt in a desperate attempt to get as far as possible. It opened its jaw, lacking in any teeth or vocal cords. Clearly trying to say something, with no tongue to speak. Perhaps it wanted to scream, but didn't have the mouth to do that as well. It couldn't communicate with her at all. Reaching forward with its hooves, like it was attempting to embrace her.  For once, this was a hug Pinkie could not accept.  "Chortle at the kooky." Pinkie's own voice didn't sound right to her, lacking in that tangible cheeriness it always had. In its place was a meek, shaky mess that threatened to devolve into a sob with every word. The spiky grip of fear had her heart in its grasp, spreading to every inch of her and locking her in place. She couldn't even manage to think, scream, or beg for just the slightest of movements. Her body wouldn't listen to her, and neither would this thing that stood before her. The rancid stench of death emanated from its mouth, so putrid bile was rising in the back of her throat that threatened to spew into the walking abomination. Her mouth tasted sour, and it took her few shreds of willpower not to vomit. Deep down she knew that with one kick or even a particularly hearty shrug it would completely fall apart; whatever was making it walk was obviously struggling to do so.  Pinkie couldn't bring herself to move at all. No matter how much she wanted to, all she could do was force out the song that she wanted with every iota of her being to save her. "S-snortle at the spooky." It was inches away from her. She tried to turn away from it, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping it would lose interest or Limestone would come and save her or something would happen. Pinkie could only wait for whatever fate it had intended for her.  "Pinkie!" Limestone's voice came from the hole, forcing Pinkie to open her eyes. Only to find that she was on the ground, resting her head on her forearms with the lantern unmoved a few inches beside her. It was pointing straight to the body, which hadn't moved at all. The ladder Limestone retrieved had been put down the hole and firmly shoved into the ground beside her, waiting to take her out of that grim place.  "Lime?" she whispered as she got to her feet, dazed and fighting back a headache that hurt with every pulse of her heart. Pinkie picked up the lantern and stared at the corpse, half expecting it to get up or say something to her. As a corpse does, it did nothing at all. "Yeah, come on. I told Father and he's writing a letter as we speak. Just get up here and go home, we've done enough for today." With some careful hesitation, Pinkie began to climb up the ladder, keeping the cadaver in the corner of her eyes at all times. Not once did it move, whisper, or anything of the sort. She must have passed out or something while waiting, and dreamed it happening.  Right?  The corpse said nothing to confirm her fears. ______ Her bed was bigger than normal.  Or, at least, it felt that way.  After she'd gotten out of the tunnel, she broke down and just had a good cry. It was stressful, even if she was never once in danger. She was pretty sure of that.  Authorities came and took the body, presumably to try to find out who it was and who it belonged to. Twilight and the others comforted her as soon as she told them what happened; Rainbow even offered to throw her a party to cheer her up. As nice as that was, it was already late and the whole situation had left her exhausted. That was saying a lot considering how much it took for Pinkie to get tired.  When she had entered her bedroom, she wanted to just collapse into the soft mattress and rest.  But the bed seemed bigger than normal.  It must have been how dark the room was. She knew the room head to hoof, and could point out any object wherever it was; even the outlines of objects weren't foreign to her. Regardless, there was something about the dark parts of her room that left her deeply unsettled tonight. Nothing was in the room except for Gummy, which didn't explain the overbearing sensation of being watched wherever she went.  In the bathroom, in the kitchen, in her room. It was there.  Nothing relieved this irrational fear. No amount of flicking the lights on and off or checking every square inch was enough to erase the worry that something was going to come out of the dark as soon as she glanced away. That, against all reason, the corpse had followed her and hid in the darkness like a living-dead shadow. Gummy didn't share in her paranoia, and she'd become pretty astute in all things Gummy. Either he was blissfully unaware of whatever was hiding in the dark of her once-familiar room, or it was all in her mind. Neither of those possibilities were particularly comforting. Out of a lack of energy and patience, Pinkie decided to leave all of the lights on, even the ones in the bathroom. When there was no darkness, there was undeniable proof that nothing was hiding from her. Twilight told her that something like this could happen after a traumatic event, something along the lines of 'her brain staying in a state of hyperawareness and searching for threats', regardless of whether there are any threats or not. She also mentioned that if it did happen, she should go see Twilight the following day. That was future Pinkie's problem. Present Pinkie's problem was trying to get some sleep with the lights on.  For tonight, she would tolerate that. In the morning when she woke up, everything would become a bad memory, then eventually a bad dream, then forgotten.  All she needed was a good night's sleep to feel better.