One of the last things I heard was the shocked gasps of everypony as I tumbled down the fifty metres. I swung my head and desperately held out a hoof; hoping anypony would latch onto it. I felt nothing. To the naked eye I vanished, plummeting into Celestia-knows-what. I quickly spread out my wings but they hurt too much, only making me scream in pain. I knew there was nothing I could do. Sooner or later I would hit something, anything.
It wasn’t a hard surface or a soft one. I could not describe the impact. This time I knew what I had to do. Instinct took over. Using all my four movable limbs, I hastily thrust upwards within this suffocating substance, ignoring all the discomforts accompanying me. It paid off as faint glitter of light was nearing. To me, this meant that I was nearing the surface, and I was right. I emerged gasping loudly and sharply. Air I thought. The tastiest thing in all of Equestria.
However my victory was short lived. Just as started to recover my breath I felt a great force crush me downwards. Whatever force this was it had pushed me so far down that I could virtually see nothing. I tried to move my limbs, but I couldn’t feel them anymore. I didn’t even try my wings because I knew they were already dead. For a pony like myself, I was surprised as to how easily I gave up. I let the darkness engulf me. I let everything in my mind drift away. It felt a lot better to let it go than to think of imminent death.
Suddenly out of nowhere a small white dot appeared in front of me and exploded light everywhere, worst of all directly in my face. I tightly squinted my eyes, waiting for the end. As time went on, I grew into a state of hysteria. This fear was nothing like I had ever felt before. The fear of the unknown was too great. I flung open my trembling eyelids and just like that a new feeling struck me. In shock instead of seeing a watery grave, I saw a sapphire sky, cotton white clouds, evergreen landscape, ponies…
Ponies? I thought with doubt. Is my mind playing up with me?
I shut my eyes, shook my head and opened them again, met by the same environment
“What the ffaaaaaaaaahhh!”
I had inched a little too far from whatever I was resting on. Immediately I deployed my wings and tried to flap them but discovered that they were annoyingly accompanied by the same pain I felt when I plunged the fifty metres. At least they were working again.
“Oh cra…..!”
All the impact of the earth was focused on my head. In the distance I could hear a short, high pitched laughter. I immediately knew who that was.
“Hiya Dashie!” A pink coated pony said bursting with energy as she always did. “Is that some new kind of prank, falling off a cloud to be smacked senseless because that was hilarious!”
“Pinkie Pie!” I shakily said. “It’s not a prank if you don’t do it on somepony.”
Pinkie Pie could only giggle. “Oh right! I can be so silly sometimes!”
I rolled my eyes. “I can imagine that.”
I took a moment to familiarize myself with my surroundings, to be sure that I wasn’t dreaming. How did I get here? Wasn’t I somewhere else? Where was I anyway? How did I get on that cloud? My mind was still asking me questions about what had just happened. Again I closed my eyes and tried to think as hard as I could to try and make sense of this incident. I tried and tried but it only got me to have a pounding headache and Pinkie Pie having a concerned look on her face. I abandoned my thoughts and picked myself up looking a little embarrassed. I was in a great mess.
“So how’s your wings Dashie? Fine? Great? I’m so happy for you!” Pinkie Pie didn’t even give me a chance to answer.
“Actually I think they aren’t getting any better.” I said as I continued to look around. “For some reason they feel a lot sorer now.”
“Well, have you been doing any-”
“Man do I miss the sky.” I interrupted. “I miss zipping around, performin’ tricks. Can you believe I have to walk everywhere when I could just fly? I almost feel like one of you-”I was abruptly stopped by a pair of frowning cyan eyes “Oh..? Did I just say that?” I chuckled nervously. “Umm…sorry?”
Pinkie Pie’s face lit up. “Oh it’s ok! No harm done. I would never get used to the sky anyway! All that wind and speed would make me throw up! No matter what condition you are in, you’re still the fastest pegasus around!”
“Duh of course I am!” I proudly said as I hovered above her. “Why I bet there’ll be no other pegasus faster than-!” I immediately stopped myself as a noticed I was bragging again. “Uh, I’ll leave that for the Wonderbolts. Anyway um…thanks.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Where are we mum?”
Sighing loudly, she felt it was the thousandth time she had answered that question. “We’re at the beach sweetie!”
“Here?” she said unimpressed. “It’s so, boring.”
“Well then why don’t you get in with me?” The mother replied. “Have some fun?”
“But,” the child hesitated. “I don’t like….that.” The filly pointed to the ocean.
“But sweetie!” the mother chuckled, “How will you ever know if you’ve never tried it before?”
“But I don’t want to!” The young pony stamped her hoof.
“Well then I guess you will always remain a sacredy-pony, like your friend Fluttershy.”
The filly’s face changed instantly from fear to determination. If one thing she hated, it was being called a scaredy-pony. She glanced over to her mother who was trying her best to conceal her grin as playing “reverse phycology” on her daughter had worked. Running back from the ocean, the filly prepared a dive in. As fast as she flew in the air, the young pony gained momentum, exerted a powerful jump and crashed into the water.
She couldn’t see, feel nor taste anything. It was a feeling like nothing she had ever experienced. Instantly hooked, being in the water was a new experience. It was cooling, relaxing and had no boundaries. She could swim as deep as she wanted and go wherever she liked. To her, it somewhat was like being in the air, but this was a different sensation. It was new, bizarre and fascinating.
Nature shortly took over as the out-of sight filly began to weaken. “Air” she thought. She inhaled through her nostrils and to her surprise, it made her gag. She tried her mouth next but it made her cough out all the remaining air inside of her. “What?! I can’t breathe underwater?!” Her mind said, going into panic. She could see the surface, but it was at least ten metres up. She desperately looked around for any other options she could try to escape the suffocating substance, but it was too late. The feeling in her limbs had already vanished. Her eyelids were getting heavy and her chest felt like fire.
Trying a last desperate attempt, the determined filly used all her remaining energy in one last powerful thrust upwards.
She managed to hit an object, but wasn’t quite sure what it was. From that moment, everything in the world disappeared from her.
The next thing she remembered was being on dry land, coughing and sputtering up water in the hooves of her mother.
“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!”
I awoke to find myself on the wood floor of Sugarcube Corner, sweating and trembling. It was just a dream, I told myself. I looked up and saw that I had rolled right off my bed. I turned my head left and saw that Pinkie Pie’s bed was empty. Subsiding my panicked breathing, I picked myself up from the cold floor and headed downstairs to thank Pinkie Pie for letting me live here temporarily, at least until my wings were healed. Just as I put my hoof on the stairs, a fast moving object collided with me sending me tumbling to the ground.
“Ow.” I said bluntly.
Pinkie Pie seemed unaffected. “Rainbow Dash, I heard a scream! Are you okay?!”
“Yes.” I replied sleepily. “Just a little uh, dream.”
Pinkie Pie seemed unconvinced. Her face stared at me full of doubt. I tried my best to fake a smile but failed halfway through. I rose to her level.
“Thank you for letting me spend the night-”
“Hey girls,” A lavender unicorn appeared. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Hi Rainbow Dash.” came a hesitant timid voice.
There’re just all over me this morning aren’t they?
“Hey Rainbow,” said the lavender unicorn. “I just stopped by to say that Rarity’s organising another one of her little get-togethers by the beachside. You wanna come?”
“Oh yes,” said the timid voice. “It’s going to be lots of fun.”
I hesitated, looking at the eager faces of Pinkie Pie, Twilight and Fluttershy. “Yes.” I said irritably, feeling a bit cranky and sleep deprived.
“Wooohooo!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie.
“That’s great” said Twilight. “See you at around um, three?”
I was already half crawled into my bed. “Yeees.” I called back.
“By the way how’s your wings?” asked Twilight.
“Fantastic.” I replied
Pinkie Pie frowned detecting my sarcasm.
“Well then we should leave you to rest so they can get even more fantastic!” Fluttershy energetically said.
Sighing in relief, I pulled my sheets over myself, shut my eyes and returned to the wonderful realm of sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~
An evil grin grew on my face. Ideally positioning a cloud just a few metres away from my target, I quickly tossed a water gun filled with evaporative-coloured ink to Pinkie Pie and got one for myself. I hid behind the cloud that I had positioned and Pinkie Pie underneath some shrubs.
“One, two, three….GO!”
We emerged from our hiding places, Pinkie Pie spraying the target from behind and I flying directly over, squirting the coloured liquid directly on top of the target. A loud high-pitched but somewhat melodious scream followed which forced me to cover my ears.
“Rainbow Dash! Pinkie Pie! Honestly! That is so…uncivilised!”
Pinkie Pie and I were trying our best to conceal our rampant laughter. “Lighten up Rarity-!” I could not say anymore as I burst into laughter.
“It’ll go away!” Pinkie Pie managed to say.
“When?!” Rarity frantically asked.
“Never!” I teased.
“Pinkie, Dash,” whispered the voice of Fluttershy. “That wasn’t…nice.”
I shook my head. “Aw it’s all in good fun Fluttershy. Plus it gives me a good laugh!”
“Fluttershy’s right.” Twilight intervened “It wasn’t very nice. Just look at Rarity!”
Pinkie Pie and I eyed the ink soaked Rarity who was trying her best to remove the ink in her mane, which sent us rolling on the ground laughing. Giving up, Fluttershy and Twilight rolled their eyes.
“Well,” Rarity finally managed to say. “Now that we’re all here I say let’s get started and-”
“Wait.” I interrupted. “What about Applejack?”
“Oh she’ll join us later.”
We gathered around to Rarity’s magnificent picnic banquet which consisted of starters, main and dessert which impressed me very much. I was not that hungry so I helped myself to an apple and sat down to enjoy the view of the beachside.
“So,” Pinkie Pie was first to speak. “How’s your wing-”
I sighed loudly. “Seriously, can we change the subject? That’s like the only thing everypony’s been talking about. Um…let’s see…” I paused trying to come up with another subject of discussion. “How’re your animals Fluttershy?
Fluttershy tilted her head. “Fine?”
Feeling a bit awkward, I shut my mouth and let the four other ponies converse with each other. Since I had nothing to say, my mind went back to the strange event which occurred yesterday. Apparently I fell of something, but what? I dug through my head to try and find an answer but it came unsuccessful. Then my mind drifted to the nightmare I experienced last night. This time somepony was drowning. Well, the other day I fell off something and I couldn’t breathe. That’s sorta like drowning, is it? Once again I had wasted my time bombarding myself with unanswerable questions.
“Hey does anypony wanna play a game of Frisbee?” I said as an attempt to take my mind off it. “Anypony? Rarity?”
Rarity promptly shook her head.
“Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy timidly looked up and nodded.
“Perfect! I’ve got a Frisbee!” Pinkie Pie ran to her bag produced one and tossed it to Fluttershy.
With all her might, Fluttershy swung her head and threw the Frisbee which went hurdling through the sky. Easy catch I told myself. With great foolishness I jumped and expected my wings to work but I was sent back to the ground with great pain. Looks like I’ll have to run.
I chased after the Frisbee, perhaps faster than I had ever ran before. I chased after it without looking where I was going, like my life depended on it. When I thought I was nearing, I started to run backwards with my mouth open to try and catch it. The object was nearing my face. I opened my mouth even wider to ensure a perfect catch. Once it was in reach, I ascended from the ground.
“Yes! I caught the Fris-”
Instead of landing on solid ground after jumping up, I felt myself fall for an unusually long amount of time. I looked down and to my horror; I realised I had just jumped off a rocky cliff into the roaring ocean below. I swung my head and held out a hoof, hoping anypony would latch onto it. I felt nothing. I heard a gasp, probably from Fluttershy. I desperately tried to flap my wings, but they hurt too much, only making me scream in pain. Not long after, I saw the faces of all my friends including Applejack, scream in horror as they watched me plummet into the ocean. That scream was one of the last things I heard as I fell fifty metres.
I crashed into the water below. It didn’t fell soft, nor hard. Even if I couldn’t swim, I knew what I had to do. Using my four movable limbs, I thrust upward in panic to try and get to the surface as quickly as I could, ignoring all the discomforts accompanying me. I was quickly losing breath, but the sight of light gave me more energy than ever before. I emerged from the water surface with a sharp, loud gasp. Air I thought. The tastiest thing in all of Equestria.
Out of nowhere a shadow cast over me. I looked up and saw another incoming wave. All its force and might crashed onto me. I was hit so hard by it that I had been pushed so far down into the ocean that I could virtually see nothing. I tried to move my limbs, but I couldn’t feel them anymore. I didn’t even try my wings because I knew they were already dead. For a pony like myself, I was surprised as to how easily I gave up.
One last glimmer of hope spawned in my head. I remembered at this moment any time now, I would experience a blinding sensation of white light. I built up hope and eagerly waited for the light to happen. It did not.
Just like that, with almost every bit of air inside of me gone, I let the darkness engulf me. I let everything in my mind drift away. It felt a lot better to let it go than to think of imminent death.