Pinkie Pie's Suicide Psychosis

by Facemelt91

Black snow falls

Chapter 3 – Black Snow Falls

Sanity is found at the centre of convulsion, where madness is scorched from the bisected soul.

Rainbow Dash stood at the hospital desk with a hamper of treats and a huge get-well card that she had made a point of getting everypony she knew to sign. She tapped her hoof on the ground impatiently as she waited for the receptionist to return.

It was three weeks since Pinkie Pie had made her first suicide attempt and nobody had seen or heard from her in the interim. Her psychiatrist had declared her “mentally unfit” for discharge and she had been kept under guard ever since. Worst of all, she hadn’t been allowed any visitors until that morning. Rainbow couldn’t comprehend how being shut away in a colourless room and denied access to her friends would have helped her situation.

Rainbow let out a relieved sigh when the receptionist returned with a half-smile.

“She’s awake, you can go in and see her.”

Rainbow beamed at her and trotted inside, holding the hamper by her mouth. When she reached Pinkie Pie’s room, the guard snatched her hamper and rummaged through it.

“Hey! What gives, pal?” Rainbow demanded.

“I have to check for anything sharp,” the guard replied disinterestedly. Satisfied that the hamper only contained fruit and cakes, he handed it back to Rainbow. “You’re clear. Any problems, just holler and I’ll be in.”

“Why would there be any problems?”

The guard didn’t answer. He stepped aside and let the pegasus pony through.

The room was utterly bare: bare walls, bare floor, bare ceiling and a barred window that obscured most of the natural light. The air felt heavy and thick, like the atmosphere right before a thunderstorm. A cold chill slithered down her mane as she approached the bed and saw Pinkie Pie lying there with her eyes half-open.

The wires.

Rainbow’s stomach tightened. She could feel the bitter taste of vomit in the back of her throat and she gulped it back desperately. Wires ran into Pinkie Pie’s limbs, supplying her with food, water and sedatives. As Rainbow drew close to the bed, she placed the hamper on the bedside table and sat down on a chair. For a long time, she just sat there and looked at her friend, a pony who had once been filled with life and joy who now lay there, deflated, kept alive by machines. Her bottom jaw shook so hard she had to bite it. Pinkie Pie was there because instead of reaching out, she’d decided to swallow God-knows how many pills and carve up her legs. At first it had made her angry, and she’d spent the past three weeks taking out her anger on the trees in the Everfree Forest. But now that she was inside the hospital, looking at what her best friend had done to herself, she could feel her anger dissipating into sadness.

Pinkie Pie knew that the pegasus was there. Her wandering gaze met with Rainbow’s almost as soon as she sat down, but she didn’t say anything. As time drew on, Rainbow’s anger started shut her eyes tight to hold back the tears.

Eventually, when she could no longer stand to be silent, Rainbow Spoke. “Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie Pie turned her head to look at the pegasus. She held eye contact for a few seconds with a pair of hollow, black orbs and then turned away.

Rainbow reached out and laid a hoof on Pinkie’s. Her normally fuzzy, pink fur was coarse and grey. It was like touching a corpse. “I’m here, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow said through choked tears.

Pinkie said nothing. What could she say? Sorry?

I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash, for being a disappointment. I’m sorry for failing to end my own life when I should have succeeded. I’m sorry for being a bad friend. I’m sorry for making everyone sad. And I’m so sorry you’re here – I didn’t mean to live. Every day for so long now, I’ve wished for death and I couldn’t even do that right.

Rainbow opened up Pinkie’s card and displayed the dozens of signatures in full view. Pinkie’s eyes caught a few of the ones she recognised, those who had made the effort to write more than their name:

My thoughts are with you at this difficult time - Rarity
I wish you well with all my heart – Fluttershy
Get well soon, Pinkie, lots of love – Twilight
Chin up, sugarcube! – AJ

Even Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Applebloom had signed it. Did they even know why she was in hospital? Pinkie scoured the inside of the card and saw that Rainbow Dash had commandeered an entire corner for herself and written a two-line poem that must have taken her all night:

Remember the light and believe the light
An instant of clarity before eternal night

Pinkie struggled to assimilate what the words could mean. She turned her head away.

“You do know that we love you, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie stirred uncomfortably in bed. The wires itched, but it she scratched them she risked tearing them out, and if she tore them out she’d be sedated and sent to a more secure room without so much as an explanation.

“Hey,” Rainbow prodded the pink pony, “you heard what I said, right? We all love you. And we miss you. And we want you to come home.”

Every compliment takes a piece of my soul. An expressionist nag, stalling between fools. She looked at Dash with her dark, soulless eyes. They know nothing.

Rainbow smiled, hiding her tears. If she could get a word out of Pinkie, she could go home feeling alright. Just one word would be enough. “I guess the food isn’t too great here, huh?”

Pinkie sighed. I wouldn’t know - I don’t even get to taste it. In case you haven’t noticed it’s pumped directly into my stomach so I can’t starve myself.

“I brought you some goodies,” Rainbow said, nodding towards the hamper. “I went all the way to Manehattan for those doughnuts. Best in Equestria.”

I have reached the end of this dreary and repugnant tale of a sense interned in an alien carcass and dampened by the malignant spirit of the moral majority. The words streamed through her consciousness.

“You know,” Rainbow said, warily, “I was really scared when I found you. I really thought you were going to die.”

I’ve been dead for a long time. Then Pinkie suddenly realised what the pegasus had said. She opened her mouth and croaked the words: “you found me?”

Rainbow Dash nodded, relieved to hear her friend’s voice. “I was there.” Pinkie’s was the one life Rainbow didn’t want to boast about saving, yet it was the one life that had meant the most to her.

Pinkie turned her head away. She felt betrayed. Rainbow was to blame for her being here.

Rainbow Dash squeezed Pinkie’s hoof. “I’m not going anywhere Pinkie. I’m staying here until you’re better. Then we can throw a party, go camping and go swimming in the lake. We can have fun again, Pinkie.”

Fun? Pinkie almost choked. I don’t think I remember what that is. I haven’t felt joy or happiness in so long and I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be interested in anything other than my own mortality. I just want to leave. I just want to die. Pinkie turned to Rainbow Dash. Please won’t you help me die? Won’t you do one last favour to your friend and help me leave this world?

“Yeah, I just know it,” said Rainbow through gritted teeth, “you’re going to be feeling better in no-time. And then it’s going to be just like old times, yeah? Me, you, Twilight and the others!”

Her forced optimism was nauseating. Pinkie knew that things would never be the same. They hadn’t been for so long, why now? Nobody wants to get close to a suicide survivor – it’s not worth investing the time in a friendship that could end at any moment. Nobody wanted to go through that pain. Why are you even here, Rainbow? Pinkie knew the answer and she hated her friend for it. The card, the hamper – it was all a mirage. She’d probably threatened the likes of Snips and Snails to sign it. Nobody would care when she was gone. Even those who might feel some sadness or responsibility would get over it eventually. The only thing that’s permanent is destruction. If her friends truly loved her as Rainbow said, then they would turn a blind eye and let her wander off to her doom. They wouldn’t come looking. They wouldn’t even talk about it. They would just get on with things, like it had never happened at all.

Pinkie’s sedative pump released another dose and within minutes, she felt her eyes getting heavy and the room started to become dark. Pinkie closed her eyes and exhaled as she fell into a deep sleep.

Seven hours later, Twilight Sparkle came to retrieve the exhausted Rainbow Dash from the hospital, promising that they would go back first thing tomorrow.

Rainbow took one last look at her sleeping friend on the way out. “You stupid bastard, Pinkie,” she said through bitter tears, “Stupid, stupid bastard.”

Twilight put a hoof around the pegasus and led her away, closing the door behind her.

At 4.48 when sanity visits.
For one hour and twelve minutes I am in my right mind.
Remember the light and believe the light
An instant of clarity before eternal night.

Comments

[PhoenixFlame77]

Wow. WOW. Amazing. I can't believe this.
I just can't believe how wonderful it is.

[Fishy Sushi]

This chapter almost made me cry...

[Starsword]

I like how she's slowly moving from depression into rage. Your potryal of Pinkie Pie's plight and the plight of her friends is heartwrenching and your dark and surprisingly accurate depiction of the ponies in charge of the mentally ill is a damning inditement against the mental health industry's apathetic approach to care of those struggling with the mental illness. The first part of the chapter in paticular detailing the asshole guard and Rainbow's "brilliant" reflection that locking someone in the dark doesn't help them become well were the two things that stood out most to me. As one disgruntled former patient to a brilliant writer on the subject, I salute you.

[winterdragon]

"It was three weeks since Pinkie Pie had made her first suicide attempt and nobody had seen or heard from her in the interim."
first suicide attempt i sense forshadowing

[Skyson]

I believe it will be a popular story if there are more dramas, as brony community is flooded with self-claimed psychopaths already.
No offense to the real ones though, but it is those who believed they are in mental health problems set up the atmosphere of discrimination.