Glow

by Regidar

Glow

As Starlight fell past the 23rd story, she saw through the window a scene that had happened just a few days prior. She was standing in the room, along with Twilight. Starlight had been crying.

“Is this all that I am, Twilight?” she’d blubbered to the princess. “Is this all the worth my life has? Am I just a means to an end? Do I only exist here before you, forgiven, because if I did not, things would be worse?”

“Starlight, no, that’s not—”

Starlight in the apartment—which contained the Friendship Table despite the Tree of Harmony being 35 miles away—cut Twilight off. “My life is not worth living for its own sake. I am a character in a play I don’t want to act in.”

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, and the Starlight falling outside the window watched her fall out of frame.

As Starlight tumbled past the 22nd story, she was exposed to the sight of her hopping about the Junior Speedsters’ Flight Course nearly fifteen years ago, locked in magical combat with Twilight Sparkle. Trying her absolute hardest to wreak havoc with the most important part of Equestria’s history. Using her magical talent and prowess to create timelines of tragedy. Letting that raging void consume everything. Taking her failure, her lack of ownership to her actions, out in such a way that it immolated everything.

“I’ve destroyed a perfect past,” she found herself whispering aloud.

“And is that all that I am?” Starlight found herself asking again, watching herself bring Sugar Belle into the fold of Our Town through the window as she careened past the 21st story. She watched as she lied to her, as she filled her head with empty promises, as she took her cutie mark from her. “A prop of destruction?”

On the 20th story, the town was in midsummer. It was nighttime. Starlight in the apartment, which was actually Our Town, was standing in the center of the village. She was staring up at the sky, watching the stars twinkle into light. She felt a swooping sensation in her gut that had nothing to do with the fact that she was plummeting through the air. She was remembering what she had felt then. That hollow emptiness. How everything had gone to hell inside of her.

How, no matter how many ponies she brought under her subjugation, she’d felt worse and worse.

How she always had to have something more.

And how it was never her who was to blame.

Starlight fell past the 19th, 18th, and 17th stories, watching the same stories play out as she slowly became younger and younger in the apartments she looked into. She took more ponies into Our Town, leading up (or was it down?) to Double Diamond on the 17th story, right there at the foundation of her miserable cult.

The 16th story was blacked out. The lights were off. She couldn’t see anything in there. But she could hear, and she could feel. She could hear the squeak of the mattress springs. She could feel the sheets underneath her. She could hear the heavy breathing. She could feel the hoof across her belly.

The lights were on on the 15th story. Starlight looked on into this room, very glad that she was no longer privy to the experiences of the 16th story. The 15th story was even an ostensibly positive experience—she was being lauded as the most promising magical prodigy of her hometown. She still had streaks of black in her hair, and the eyeliner was egregious. But she’d smiled, she’d been smiling, and she felt adored and that was all that had mattered to her.

The 14th story was a stab in the gut for her to witness. She watched her teenage self trash her room in a fit of rage—why, Starlight couldn’t even recall at this point. All she could remember was the fury her little heart had been ablaze of, ripping band posters from the wall, flinging books, smashing her guitar against the floor.

The 13th story was almost comical. Starlight felt the corners of her mouth turn upward as she looked at her younger self, just barely a teenager, in the bathroom of her father’s house. This had been the first time she’d tried dying her mane black, and gotten streaks of bleach all down the sides of her face and neck, creating a rather... unfortunate look. She’d been rightly embarrassed by it. Hadn’t gone outside for a week, hadn’t gone outside until she’d found a spell to change it back. Then dyed her mane black with magic, too.

Her preteen years passed in a blur as she fell past the 12th and 11th story. Loneliness hung heavy in her heart, growing heavier and heavier. Both scenes were of her alone. On the 12th story, she was in the woods. On the 11th, at the edge of a lake. Both times she’d thought of doing something very bad.

Starlight dropped past the tenth floor. She had spun a small somersault, and she was looking at the scene upside-down.

There she was, alone in her room. Staring at her hooves. Seeing it turned on its head did not make it hurt any less.

Facing through the windows into the ninth story, Starlight spiralled past the scene in her life that caused her the most displeasure of all.

This is where she had rooted all blame for everything. This is why she’d done the things she did, ruined the lives she had.

Ended the worlds she’d ended.

But that wasn’t very satisfying, was it? That wasn’t really enough. But it was easy. Yes, it was so easy to pin the blame on Sunburst, or at least, hinge the weight of the responsibility on him as a catalyst for what had happened. But the truth was known to Starlight as she’d seen in the stories she’d passed before this one.

It wasn’t just this. It had been everything.

On the eighth story, Starlight had been a bully. Her adult form watched as herself in foalhood teased a filly, another unicorn, for being awful at magic. The elder Starlight felt sick to her stomach.

On the seventh story, Starlight had been bullied. She couldn’t remember for what, exactly—it didn’t matter, really. It was just like the story on the 14th floor. All she could remember was the shame, the pain, the fury. It briefly occurred to the falling Starlight in a twist of irony that she’d been so angry on the 14th floor because of somepony bullying her. But who, she could not say.

The sixth and fifth story flew past her. She caught little flashes of sensation—a warm hug, the smell of baking bread, the tinkle of glass, the hum of a horn—and for whatever reason even though she watched the events that originated these sensations, her mind did not put together anything visually for them.

On the fifth story, Starlight watched little more than her and her father hugging. She reached a hoof out to touch the glass, a high pitched keening singing around her as it scraped off the window. Her gut twisted into knots.

The fourth floor was going to be the most painful to look in. Starlight wasn’t able to muster the energy to turn her head from the scene, so she watched it unfold.

Her mother was there. They were sitting in the living room, before the fireplace. It was Hearth's Warming. She had been singing to her.

Starlight knew why all this was so painful. She spoke it aloud to herself yet again. “My life doesn’t mean anything; only has meaning as a function of history,” she said to her parents through the glass of the third story window as they watched their little filly frolic and play about them in the grass that shouldn’t have been inside an apartment.

Falling past the second story, she was invited to see herself as little more than a toddler, wandering around the room and testing out the limits of her horn—levitating a toy here, moving a picture there.

“She’s got quite the curious nature,” she’d heard her father say. “She wants to know everything.”

“That’s my girl,” said her mother, the pride crystal clear in her voice.

Starlight watched her tears streak upward away from her as she passed to the “first” story. She didn’t look inside the window this time. It was too painful. She wished she had had the courage to avoid looking in all the windows since the seventh floor. She was weak. This was something she already knew. It had been reaffirmed to her this one final time.

She didn’t want to watch the first story. It wasn’t even the “first” story to her.

As Starlight flew towards the pavement, she couldn’t help but look inside. It was a fault of her nature.

She was looking into the lobby of the apartment building. She was there, walking past the mare at the front desk to proceed to the stairwell. That wasn’t what caught her eye the most.

No, that was the two ponies sat right before the window on the Chintz sofa. They were a stallion and a mare she knew all too well. Curled in the arms of the mare, swaddled in a pale blue blanket, was a tiny filly.

“Look at her,” her mother said. Starlight could see the glint in the corners of her eyes.

“She’s got such a life ahead of her,” her father said, nuzzling his wife’s neck and resting a hoof lovingly atop the bundled filly.

“The best life anypony could hope for,” the mare said, and the two shared a kiss.

“There is nothing left to feel,” Starlight whispered outside the window, and she hit the ground at terminal velocity.

Starlight Glimmer caught the beginning of a gasp.

Comments

[Ice Star]

I think you showing up at my house and kicking me as hard as possible for no reason would have been nicer than this story. Like really is the wrong word for stories with the intent this one has.

It was too effective.

[Copper Cogwheel]

You've killed me, mate. You took my feels, gave them a blindfold and a last cigarette, and then blasted them with a literary RPG. I'm both appalled and impressed. I'm impalled, if you will.
Mind you, I DO like how you wrote this. But Starlight is my favorite smol periwinkle jellybean, and you've put me into Inigo Montoya mode ove here!

[Beware The Carpenter]

Why did she do this?

[Waypoint]

Damn dude.

I saw this on my recommended feed and gave it a read. I've read stories about suicide before, but you did an exceptional job putting me into the mindspace of what Starlight committing suicide might have felt like. Your use of metaphor and the apartment story imagery felt seamlessly integrated into the story, something I've never really seen before and have to commend.

[Regidar]

10962329
what if i came to your house and kissed you
10962681
it do be like that sometimes i think Starlight carries a lot of weight around with her even when she's not being tortured by me as a narrator. She has to walk around seeing all the ponies and creatures and entities she almost completely wiped out and caused a lot of undue suffering with the power she abused, from the ponies of our town to the various timeline fuckeries. I imagine it would be almost impossible to forgive herself once the gravity of that sets in no pun intended.
She deserves better than that! we all have moments of weakness. In a brighter world (aka, one not curated by me) her friends step in to help her. forgiveness is a fickle beast, though. the mind can be a nightmare.
it's wonderful to see where starlight went and what she accomplished in the show. She and trixie are the ponies i see myself in the most (for better and for worse)
10963119
I've had this framing/narrative device floating around in my head for a while. I'm not sure if I used it to its full potential here, but I'm glad you were impressed. Thank you for your kind words.
10963162
all the ponies are actually the same pony masquerading under different levels of mane style, color, and hue saturation

[Ice Star]

10963398
I have a boyfriend.

[Octoskan]

That framing device... narrative tool, whatever it actually is, was absolutely stunning. Upvoted and favorited.

[sykko]

Holy shit. That story was haunting.

[Regidar]

10963590
thank you that means a lot
i wish i had expanded it a bit, honestly. i usually stick to a certain brevity in that i dont want certain ideas to overstay their welcome, but some of the floors could have been expanded more. i feel that this story would probably work better in a visual medium. a lot of times i find myself writing stories that really should be comics. perhaps one day i will learn to draw

[mishun]

... and she hit the ground at terminal velocity.

derpicdn.net/img/2018/11/22/1888436/medium.png
Technically that's not enough height to reach terminal velocity.
(and there's probably no cool slide show when you're falling in real life)

[Regidar]

10964889
oh man I just spent the last ten minutes trying to figure out how to have accurately made it so that she could have reached terminally velocity and my brain broke. this is why i do artsy fartsy stuff and am not a physicist. but yeah, you got my intent lol. it was more for the effect of the story than it was for the accuracy of reality. talking colorful horses who can do magic also don't exist, and you probably don't witness a core memory from each year you were old corresponding to the building level you're passing when you fall lmao

[mishun]

10964922

talking colorful horses who can do magic also don't exist

i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/477/329/0ed.jpg

[TheLegendaryBillCipher]

Well, they say in the end, your life is supposed to flash before your eyes, and you managed an interesting and insightful way to do it. Bit of a punch in the gut but a great story overall.

[BladesAndAshes]

daaaaamn I always love a good suicide fic to make my eyes blurry

[Zalmax]

10964922

I just spent the last ten minutes trying to figure out how to have accurately made it so that she could have reached terminally velocity

Making each floor 25 meters high should do it?
Or we can assume she's an airhead, and with lower density she would reach equilibrium sooner.
Perhaps she was just in a hurry and accelerated faster than usual?

Good story no matter what.

[Stainless Steel Fox]

I assiujmed there was a twist, such as she'd duplicated herself, so there was a version that stayed in Ponyville, possibly with some judicious memory editing to ensure this version didn't go suicidal.

[Shiny Kelp]

I didn't pay attention to the tags (just selected this story randomly from a pile of Read-It-Laters) so this caught me very off guard, dayum.

Though there's something I don't quite understand (probably because my brain is just not functioning today, dealt with way too much bureaucrazy):

Is Starlight in a time loop here? How, exactly? For that to happen one would have to travel back in time, but uh, she can't do that if she's dead.... Right? Yet it seems that she fully expected her future self to fall right that instant.
But if the how got my head spinning, the why back-slapped me, threw me off a building and danced on my grave. I have no idea what reason she would do this for.

EDIT: Waiiit... I think I might get it. She time-traveled right before jumping, so her fall would happen right when past Starlight was on the building. As to why, uh... Maybe she wanted to reassure her past self that she wanted to go forth with the suicide? Or maybe she just wanted to create this endless loop of suffering because she hates herself that much?
Idk, maybe I'm overthinking it. Brain hurty.

[creativeusername34]

11002596
I think that having her start climbing the stairs on the same floor that her parents say she has great things ahead is symbolic. It might be that she is betraying one of the first things she ever heard that makes it the most painful, both physicaly and emotionally. Also, the comment at the begining about the lowest floor being the zero floor represents her birth, the climb up the stairs her life, and each floor she passes going down an experience that made her hate her life.

[Shiny Kelp]

11059285
No I get that, what I don't get is why the time paradox... Or if it even is a time paradox.

[creativeusername34]

11059993
probably more of her tourturing herself. she can see herself begin the climb right before she hits the ground, probably making sure she goes through the pain of the memories. also, at the begining she waits to start going up until she hears herself hit the ground, which could be her making sure she doesn't back out. (my brain hurts now too)

[False Door]

Thank you. The pain was exquisite.

Reminds me of the 'bent neck lady' reveal in the Haunting of Hill House.

[Regidar]

11077160
there is nothing left to feel
</3

[crystaltunes]

Great story, but you’ll be paying for my therapy.

[Prince Polaris]

Not glim glim ;~;