//------------------------------//
// A Dark Life 
// Story: A True True Friend 
// by Darksied 
//------------------------------//

	What is life without light? Just darkness. Then the next logical question to ask would be "What is the light?" The only answer I can produce is that the light is what you make it, and to our character, the light was always a true true friend. This is the story of David, a depressing one at that. His mother died when he was ten years of age. Then, in the aftermath, he is forced to live his abandoning, verbally-abusive father and move to a school where he could never hope to "fit-in". Now 15, David has discovered the television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This is where our story starts, with a forsaken and alienated David, enjoying himself for the first time in a long while.


"Wow, that was a good episode. I want to watch the next one." David said to himself quietly. He was alone in his house again, his dad was at work. David wondered what happened everyday at work to make his dad so angry. He quickly shook off this thought. David acted like he didn't care, because nothing could be bad enough to make his father act the way he does. David glanced carefully to his clock. It was already half-past three o'clock. Why did the time had to go so fast. He let his head drop. Tomorrow, he would be back at that shitty school. At this thought, he pulled his bedspread over himself and groaned into his pillow. Dad was going to be home soon. He looked up to see his small laptop screen, which still had his most recently watched episode of My Little Pony on it. The Sisterhooves Social. He really did like the show, but he could never let anyone know. Just the insults that are thrown his way regularly were more than enough, the last thing he needed was for those people to know he watched a show for little girls. But what could he do? It was one of the only thing that entertained him. Books got progressively more boring, he couldn't afford video games and he only had basic cable, so TV wasn't much of an option. His only real sources of entertainment were music and this show. Well, there wasn't much to do now. 
"DAVID! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" His father bellowed as he walked into the house.
David un-curled slightly to close his laptop. His dad burst into his room. He saw David in bed and got close to his face. 
"Listen you little shit, you answer me when I call you, but that's not what I came in here for. Why didn't you clean the living room? Why can't you just do simple tasks? I always knew there was something wrong with you, probably from your mother, but I didn't think it would be the inability to do basic work. Dear god."
"I did clean it, just like you said. I got behind everything." David replied calmly, but with a twinge of annoyance in his voice. 
"But you didn't, did you? You skipped behind the TV and the chairs by the wall. You thought you'd just give yourself the authority to change the rules? Why can't you do anything right? Do you always have to be such a massive disappointment. I swear to God, I don't even know why I agreed to take you in, because you're just worthless. You can't do well in school, you don't do what I tell you and you just lay there all day. Did you even go outside today? Or did you just sit inside on your computer the whole day again. I'm out working six days a week so you can do mediocre in school and be useless....." he continued to rant like this for about another ten or twenty minutes, but this about the time David stopped listening. 
"Just, go make some dinner or something. And try not to screw this up, like everything else." His father finished before vacating David's room. David got up from his bed, wearing only sweatpants and a loose T-shirt, and shuffled into the kitchen. He grabbed a box of Macaroni & Cheese, a can of Tomato soup and the ingredients for Grilled Cheese. 

After dinner, David did the dishes and decided to take a shower and go to bed early, he'd need the extra energy for tomorrow. Mondays were always the worst, by far. David had no problem falling asleep. 

Monday morning came quickly with no dreams. David woke at Seven O'clock. He was in no hurry to be at school early. He got packed, half-finished homework and all. It was near the end of the year, thank god. Really, before High School, it wasn't too bad. He had a few friends, but his dad was still bitter and hateful. But the second he walked in on the first day of ninth grade, the shit hit the fan. It didn't take long for the kids to become cruel and mock him about the death of his mother, and unlike the clichés of the movies, no one came to his rescue. They just let him suffer in silence. Nothing was ever said to administration, and there if was, he'd never heard about it. Still the insults piled on. The relief of summer came and went, with only a new laptop to show for it. Then sophomore year started, and no time was wasted by his old tormentors to return like moths to a flame. Now, new insults came, stuff like Poor Kid and Druggie because of his lack of new clothes and the other because of his new antidepressant, which didn't work very well. But now the year was now almost over, and he could leave this God-forsaken place. The only people he bothered to think about fondly were the people that never mocked him, which weren't many. The day went past with only mild abuse, but when David came home, his father was already there, which was odd. David walked in and called out.
"Dad? Are you home?" he yelled, to be heard around the house.
"Yes, son, I'm up here. Could you come here please." His father responded calmly. This was odd, his father sounded strangely calm. David walked up the stairs to his dad's room, but he wasn't there. 
"I'm in here, David." He said, still uncharacteristically quiet. David walked into his room to see his father standing over his computer smashed to pieces. 
"Oh my God, what happened?!" David yelled as he dropped his backpack and went to where the destroyed computer was. 
"I got rid of it, for you own good. From now on, if you need a computer, I'll drive you to the library." He said, almost whispering. 
"WHAT!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"  David yelled as he turned quickly towards his parent. 
"Don't yell at me David, I did this for your own good, you need to get some time away from the computer." he responded, his voice now rising. "All of your problems stem from that." He pointed at the computer. 
"SO YOU COULDN'T JUST HIDE IT,YOU COULDN'T JUST LOCK IT UP?" David yelled. 
"No, you would've just eventually found out where it was or how to get to it." His father's voice rising even more now. David stared at his dad for a long while with mixed emotions of hate, pain, and sadness. After that, his father left the room and said 
"Dinner's in the kitchen, you don't have to come down." Then closed the door behind him. He had destroyed one of his only true possession. He would never forgive him. David just slowly walked to his bed, and curled up under the sheets. The days after that came and went, with David's mood plateauing at miserable. With summer came little relief. David did go outside more often, but not to play, just to brake out. He walked and thought about how much he'd like to be watching MLP. But little did David know, that through all of this, there was someone watching, keeping a close eye, and this person decided now was the time that David needed a friend more than ever.