It was a stormy night, rain was pelting down and the storm clouds were dark and ominous. Terrified squeaks sounded from behind a locked and hidden door. It was hidden away in the back of the house, for it held a small child whom was never supposed to be born. She had no name, her birth certificate said 'Blank' as her name, but her mother never addressed her, except to say cruel words. The girl barely spoke, if she dared to mutter the very few words she did know, she was punished by her mother. Her father had left shortly after she was born and her mother hated her for it, so she was constantly being punished and was kept locked up so her mother didn't have to see her.
She wasn't old enough to go to school yet, so her mother found no reason to let her out. Every three or so hours she was allowed out of her room to go to the bathroom and was given two meals a day; each time she was given porridge and a small glass of milk, nothing more, and sometimes less, if her mother was in a bad mood. She knew nobody except her mother, and a small white rabbit that had found a way into her room a few days before. The rabbit she named Angel. Her mother always talked about how she wished an angel could take her away so her mother wouldn't have to see her again. Though she didn't really understand what she meant, she wished that an angel would take her away too.
When Angel first visited her, she had freaked out, but then saw that the rabbit was harmless, so she gave it a bit of her porridge since she had just gotten dinner. She coaxed the rabbit closer to eat, and by the time that she picked out the name Angel, Angel was sitting in her lap eating out of her hands. The girl had then fallen asleep, only to be shaken awake by her mother the next day, demanding to know what little pellets were doing in the girl's room.
The girl had cried quietly as her mother punished her, and then sat in the corner listening to her mother tell her to make sure that no rodents got in the room, and if they did, to kill them. She learned that day to never let her mother see Angel, or else he would die. Angel had escaped from her room, and today was the first time she had seen him since she found him in her room.
Angel snuggled up close to the small child as she cried softly in fear. Thunder storms scared her; they were loud and lasted forever in her mind. Her mother also was scarier when there was a storm, because the next morning she would smell really bad and would punish her even more than normal.
“Shut your trap!” a loud voice screamed at the girl, which made her close her eyes tighter and whimper.
Her cries softened as she tried to stop herself from crying harder. A while later, she fell into a nightmarish slumber.
The next day, the girl awoke to the sounds of laughter coming from outside her room. She wiped her eyes of sleep and dried tears, and got up off the floor, sadly noticing that Angel was gone. There was a small window that was near the ceiling, but if she stood on her tiptoes on her neatly made bed, then she could see through the bottom part of the window since apparently she was really tall for her age of four and a half. She climbed onto her bed slowly, being as quite as possible, and boosted herself up on her toes, then peered out of the window, straining to see above the ledge and outside.
What she saw was beautiful. A streak of red, blue, green, orange, yellow and purple flashed a ways from her window. As she looked closer, she realized it was a girl about her age, who was running around and laughing loudly. It was gorgeous, a blur of colors like a rainbow, and the girl smiled for the first time since she met Angel, as she saw the pretty colors in the girl’s hair. She lifted her hand to the window and struggled to find the small latch that would let her open it.
Finally, she found it, and she unlatched the lock then pushed the window open as quietly as she could. She lifted herself again with renewed strength, then peered out the window, and again saw the blur of color. The quiet girl opened her mouth and called out to the other girl who stopped and looked around. She saw the house, and the tiny window, and drew nearer, for her curiosity took over any sense of cautiousness, though there wasn’t much to begin with.
“Hello?” the rainbow headed child called to the window.
The girl smiled and struggled to speak back, “H-hi!”
"Um... who are you?” the rainbow headed girl asked as she stepped back to try and see into the small window.
“I a-am...” she tried to remember what her mother always called her, "y-you,"
"You? Is that your name?" the girl called as she finally stepped back a proper distance to see the pink haired child with blue eyes peering through the tiny opening.
The girl nodded, "Y-yes,"
“That's silly. I'm Rainbow Dash! I’m the fastest runner at my preschool! But what are you doing up there? I’ve never heard of you before,” Rainbow Dash called loudly.
She didn't know what to say. Her vocabulary consisted of the few words her mother said, but none of them seemed right to say to the girl. She stood silently until the other girl called out again, annoyed that she was being ignored.
"Hey!"
"Y-yes?"
"Why don't you come and play with me?"
The girl's eyes widened, "Oh no... m-mom said no to go out,"
Rainbow Dash blinked and tilted her head to the side, "You sound really funny,"
The girl scratched her head in thought, maybe some of the words in her head weren't coming out of her mouth properly, but she didn't know how to say them, at least, she's never had the chance to talk this much before.
"S-sorry,"
"It's okay, no need to ap-"
“Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash cringed, it was her mother, and her mother didn’t want her to go near this house for some reason.
“Just a minute mom!” Rainbow cried back.
She winced at the sudden loudness of her friend's voice.
"I have to go, but I'll come back and talk to you again soon-"
Suddenly the girl heard her mom unlocking her door. It's too early for her to be up! Thinking quickly, she let go of the window ledge and fell back onto her bed, bouncing momentarily on the edge before sinking to the floor and curling up in a ball. Her mother slammed open the door, the noise echoes and Rainbow Dash hears it from outside. The tall woman grinned as she stumbled into her daughter's room, eyes glazed over from being drunk. Lazily she searched the room, not immediately noticing the girl curled up on the floor. Once the girl is seen, the mother's grin twists into a sneer of disgust. She screams angrily and moves forward quickly.
The girl cried out as she's punished for simply being alive. After a short time, her mother saw the opened window, and she growled, her brutal attack turning vicious. Screams soon erupted from the young child's mouth as her life was slowly and painfully beaten from her.
Outside, Rainbow Dash heard the commotion going on and called out to her newfound friend, but flinched back when she only heard more screaming. Her mother came running and grabbed Rainbow’s arm, then, hearing the commotion as well, pulled out her phone and dialed an emergency number. What happened next was a blur to both Rainbow Dash and the girl. The world around the girl quiets and her screams die down; she watches blankly as her mother beats her, kicking and hitting her violently. Then, the world goes black, and she feels no more.
Rainbow Dash cried against her mother’s shirt as they waited for the police and ambulances to get there, but it seemed to take a lifetime. By the time they got there, the screaming had already escalated, and then died down to only one voice. The police burst into the house, found the back room, and burst in there immediately. Rainbow Dash and her mother stood, waiting impatiently for the police to come back out, but when they did, the two almost wish they hadn’t.
On a stretcher, lay a very bloody yet still body of a tall, deathly skinny child with pink hair. And following behind the nurses with the stretcher, were the mother and two policemen whom had to each hold an arm to keep her under control. Rainbow’s mother turned her child away from the scene, but was thankful that she was able to do something to help the young child to get away from the abuse.
The two were allowed to ride with the second police cruiser that didn’t hold a screaming woman in the back, to the hospital. They sat in the waiting room and received reports on how the girl was doing, but they were not permitted to see her for a long while. However, after a couple of days, when they came back from both work and school to check on the child, they were relieved to hear that she would recover in time and with therapy.
The doctor pulled Rainbow Dash’s mother aside, “I am not sure if you know this, but that child hasn’t been seen by anyone except her mother since she was born. She doesn't seem to know how to talk, we're guessing she was never taught, and she has no meat on her body; she was nearly starved to death. We have her birth certificate and all of her official documents, but she has no other family now that her mother is in jail, since her father disappeared at her birth. So she will have to go into foster care or an orphanage until her mother’s sentence is over, or until she is old enough to legally take care of herself,”
“What? But, can I do anything to help so she isn’t permitted into foster care?” the mother asked.
“You would have to get a lawyer and discuss it with them. One other thing you need to know is she doesn't have an actual name. When we asked her her name, she said, 'you'. I believe that that is what her mother called her, so that's what she thinks her name is. On her birth certificate it has 'Blank' as her name,"
The woman gasped, "That's awful!"
The doctor nodded and after talking for a little while longer, they agreed to look into adoption options further, but later. Rainbow and her mother were allowed to see Blank in her room the next day. Rainbow walked slowly towards the bed where the child laid; her pastel pink hair curled around her head like a halo, and her yellow tinged skin was bruised and scarred. Rainbow took her new friend’s hand carefully, and held onto it like a life source, hoping her friend would be better as soon as possible. Rainbow's mother laid a hand on her shoulder and kneeled next to her.
"Darling, what do you think about having her be your sister?"
Rainbow Dash looked at her mother curiously, "What?"
"I am going to try and adopt her so she can be your sister; I have great plans for her; what do you say?"
Rainbow smiled, "That would be awesome!"
"Good, now I'm determined to adopt her,"
Rainbow Dash and her mom watched the girl as she did a session of therapy in the hospital to recover from her fragile state. Now she had some meat on her body and was looking healthier than before. Rainbow's mother smiled at her daughter.
"So, what do you think her name should be?"
Rainbow hummed, "How about... Fluttershy!"
The girl looked over at them curiously since they were being loud, and Rainbow grinned and waved. The girl smiled back shyly and waved slightly before concentrating on her task at hand.
"I like it, it sounds perfect for her. Fluttershy,"
And thus, the girl was named Fluttershy instead of Blank. Fluttershy smiled to herself, it seemed that hope was finally within her reach, and she would cling to it as if her life depended on it.