//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Without Notice // by MrSuicide //------------------------------// Without Notice – Chapter 1 _____________________________________________________________________________ Rain. There was lots of rain today. Heck, it’ll be quite surprising if the fruits and vegetables somehow survived too. Guess the Pegasi didn’t expertly calculate the supposed amount of rain clouds that was to hover around Ponyville… No matter. Just another exciting day in Ponyville after all, isn’t it always? The last time something “happened”, Nightmare Moon was defeated by a group of six mares. Though, nopony actually knew how they did it. Nopony just never questioned it. *Ring!* A very slight, but noticeable movement moved the blanket. *Ring! Ring! Rin-* “Alright! Alright! ALRIGHT!....I’ll….get up.” The Pegasus pony slammed down the alarm clock, causing it to become silent once more. Ditzy Doo, or as the other ponies have known the cross-eyed, blond haired and tailed mare as Derpy Hooves, got up from her warm bed, she woozily trotted to the bathroom, which was literally next door, where she proceed to do her normal “rituals”. *Sigh* “So much to do today….in this horrible rain even….I wonder when it was scheduled to stop even….” She looked out her bathroom window before heading towards her kitchen. Her house is located near the Everfree Forest. When asked by another pony as to her decision to live there, she simply replied with a “Why not?” If Fluttershy could, why couldn't she as well? Besides, it’s usually silent for the most part. Her house consisted of two floors. Her first floor, obviously beginning with the entrance of her house, had a living room which led into the kitchen and towards the back of the house. The stairs stuck up from the left side of her living room, adjacent to the entrance. Her second floor had a single bathroom which was conveniently placed in between two bedrooms, across from where the stairs would be. One of the bedrooms was her's which contained the queen sized bed. Directly opposite of her personal bedroom was a small study room, somewhat filled with books and scrolls. “Done!” She quietly took her breakfast to her small dining table and began eating it. Contract to popular belief, she doesn’t always eat or overwhelmingly love muffins. Rather, at times, she likes to eat other food as well. The bread with butter and eggs combination that she is currently enjoying is but a few of many food choices she tends to enjoy. She quickly cleaned up, pulled out her “mask” and left the house in a jiffy, locking the door and switching the lights off of course. Even though it still rained, she had a duty to uphold, the duty of being a mailmare and apparently, being the town’s “laughingstock” as some ponies have put it. Reason being so was because she was terrible at flight, had cross eyes, had a speech problem and was believed to be easily bribed if a muffin was involved. It did hurt her mentally and sometimes physically, but she had developed a “solution” to overcome it. She developed a façade, which is her “mask”. With the usage of her “mask”, not only was she able to act freely as she could, she was able to “positively” correspond to the ponies’ insults with much lesser pain when she delivered the mail. She was glad that today was one of those days that no pony had decided to exit their homes. She thought it was a rather good exchange in fact, being wet instead of being mocked for the one millionth time. As she continued to slowly trot, rather than fly there in order to keep up with the facade, she decided to look at the time off of the giant clock that was recently built at the Town Square. She panicked. It read 7:30 AM. She had about thirty minutes to get to the Post Office which was located at the other end of town. She started to gallop. The rain consistently blurred her vision, but she still galloped at the direction she was headed towards to, hoping to not crash into anything. Thunder was heard in the grey, rainy sky. She came to a stop and paused. Rain continued to pour all around her, but she didn’t care. Instead, she gasped at the direction she was trying to look towards to. There was only an open field filled with numerous crops. The Post Office was not there, obviously indicating that she went the wrong direction. *Sigh* “So this is the first time I’ll be late to the Post Office? Hope I don’t get fired….” She started to gallop towards the correct direction that the Post Office was located. The thunder decided to openly roar throughout the grey sky. She simply did not pay much attention to it, her job having more priority then her own safety. At long last, the Post Office was in view due to its rather bright blue coating. She ran up to the entrance and tried to open the door. Except, the door was locked, a small "Closed" sign lay stuck on the bottom left side of the door’s window. “….And I thought it’ll be opened today” She started to head back home, head lowered. The previous day, she had received news that the Post Office would be operational, stating that the weather wouldn’t be too much of a burden for the mail ponies. Guess that kind of back fired or she was simply tricked by her coworkers. She continued to trot down the road, seemingly devoid of life. The buildings, the homes, and stands continued to lay drenched without a care in the world. When she looked towards one side that was stacked with numerous houses next to one another, most of them had their curtains pulled down. Some had families near the fireplace, enjoying quality family time playing games and looking happy. “Looking happy?” How long she had wished to have a family of her own. But because of her “conditions”, she seemed to have a great difficulty of finding a suitable stallion that would love her the way she was. Heck, she even considered adoption, but Foal Protection Services denied her a foal to take care of. “How I wish. Oh, how I wish to have a family of my own….” She continued to think about it more intensively, but gave up when reality was such a buck to the tree to her. The cursed shall forever be cursed forever as they would put it… The sound of thunder was heard once more. The rain did not relent in its righteous mission of soaking anything that it touched. She wondered what she’ll do once she got home. Maybe, she’ll have a cup of hot coco before heading off to take a bubble bath to clean herself off? Without realizing it, the thunder struck. This time, it didn’t just act as a simple "light display". This time, it had struck her due to her being too bothered with her own thoughts to even notice the incoming thunder strike. What she had felt was unimaginable loads of pain. Steam was radiating off of her now black coated body before “calmingly” falling over onto one side…without much of a single sound. Her eyes were still wide, filled with shock. She didn’t know, but it was a better thing that she didn’t due to the fact that the thunder had struck a gaping hole in her stomach which in turn, affected one of her wings as well. However, she wasn’t able to feel anything; rather, she felt so much pain coursing through her body that it seemed that she was accustomed to this type of lifestyle long ago. It reminded her too much of the time when several ponies that strongly disliked her, decided to badly injure her in an alleyway when she was assigned to deliver in Manehattan. She remembered that they called themselves The Anti-Derpy Coalition. She doesn’t exactly remember what caused them to strike at her in the first place, but it was probably because of her eyes and the suggested “stupidity” associated with them. Though untrue, she resorted against fighting back so that she didn’t risk getting fired from the only job that accepted her. Instead, she proposed on transferring to another branch which happened to be located in Ponyville. That "little event" happened six years ago... She laughed. Remembering past memories now is rather awkward indeed. Still, no ponies were to be found. No pony even bothered to look towards her general direction, too busy with their own “chores”. As the rain continued to shower the once gray mare into oblivion, she cursed at her life, wishing it to be much better. She didn't quite do much this life, but she still wished that her next life would be a lot better than this one had ever been. She had a bit of a trouble staying conscious, but she didn't even bother to fight to stay conscious. She had enough of what this life had provided and was more then ready to move on to the next one....if there was a next one.... For the very last time, her eyes closed. Surrounding her body was a large pool of red liquid which consistently “dissolved” as the rain continued to bombard into it. And without notice, Ditzy or Derpy as everypony had called her, slipped into the light, welcoming the blissful sensation that it had provided. And no pony would know until the next fateful morning, when the rain clouds are scheduled to be removed by then. Without notice, Ditzy Doo had left this world and no pony would even care to even remember her... _____________________________________________________________________________