Smile
It finally stopped moving.
Stopped bouncing and giggling and trying to play with me.
It stopped those a while ago, really.
Now it stopped crying and struggling and breathing.
I sit down next to it and dangle the knife in front of me, watching my reflection as it swings back and forth. It has my reflection wrong, though. I’m not crying.
I scream out of anger and not frustration or sadness or anything, and throw the knife away. It was the most useless knife. It didn’t cut anything and couldn’t even get my reflection right.
Twilight zapped them with spells and they popped. Swelled up and popped like little balloons except I never saw fear in the eyes of a balloon out of the corner of my eye while watching paint dry. Fear and pain and sadness and not one tiny bit of laughter.
I liked them, then.
Not on the outside, though. The outside was still watching the paint. But when they popped something inside felt better. Even if they weren’t me and it was only for a moment, I got to see some of the inside come out, and it took some of the hurt with it.
Pop pop pop.
Twilight made it look so easy.
But the knife didn’t pop them. It didn’t cut them or even hurt them and they just kept laughing at the game but sometimes I don’t want to play games. I don’t want to play games. I want to hurt and be hurt and scream and cry and I don’t cry because that’s not what I am. I’m not sure what I am.
Stupid bread knife. It was useless. I don't know what else I expected from a bakery.
It’s starting to crumble already.
I never make them pop, just crumble like a cookie being ground up between your hooves.
I sit and watch it crumble and start to think.
Why do they come out like that? Is that me? The really real me? Does that mean I really am useless except for laughing and games and silly things? A pony who doesn’t cry or hurt or hate or get sad, but is just happy so everypony is happy?
If that’s who I am then why am I here? Is there something wrong?
How can they come out full of laughs and smiles and playing when I’m full of hurt and hate and all these other things?
If they’re always smiling why do I need to come here? Why do I need to do this? They never don’t smile, until I make them stop.
I don’t know why, but I wipe my eyes with the back of my hoof. It’s not because I’m crying because I’d only be crying if something was wrong and if something was wrong wouldn’t they stop smiling?
Does that mean something’s wrong when I make them stop?
I don’t want to think anymore. Thinking just makes me hurt more.
They don’t think. They just smile and nothing’s wrong. I want to be like them.
I hate them.
I push myself up and walk away from the crumbling one, stepping over a couple more that landed nearby and have almost crumbled all the way. I stare into the water and my reflection stares back. I hate its poofy hair and glittering eyes and big grin. It’s all the things I want to be. It’s all the things I hate being.
I take a deep breath and say the words.
And into her own reflection she stared, yearning for one whose reflection she shared, and solemnly sweared not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly mared!
I step into the pool and step back out and there’s my reflection standing at the side of the pool with me. Standing there with poofy hair and glittering eyes and a big grin.
“Fu-”
I hit it before it finishes the word.
It stumbles back and looks up at me. The eyes are still glittering but now there are tears in the laughter. They’re still big and bright even though one is swelling shut. Its grin is trying to stay but now it’s uncertain. Blood drips from her nose, leaving a red trail down her muzzle and making red dots on the floor of the cave.
“F-fun?” it stammers out in a smaller voice.
I pounce on it, the same way I pounce Rainbow Dash or Twilight sometimes. But I never push a hoof into Rainbow’s throat. I never start pounding my other hoof into Twilight’s face.
Its nose is smashed with blood all over. I keep hitting it.
It’s gagging and coughing and trying to breathe. I keep pinning it.
The corner of my hoof catches its eye and cuts deep into it. It starts thrashing under me and trying to scream, but her flailing hooves don’t hurt and my other hoof traps the scream in her throat and it just sounds like a whimper. I keep hitting it.
Something wet is on my face and I don’t know if she’s bleeding that much.
My hoof tears her coat and skin away in places and under her coat she’s turning purple from all the bruises and trying to breathe. I keep hitting it and something cracks and she stops moving. I keep holding her for a moment before relaxing and leaning back.
I plant a hoof on either side of what’s left of its face and look down and what I’ve done.
But the broken piece of her head is sticking out in the middle and she looks more purple than pink now and all I can see is Twilight.
I can’t help it.
I think of hurting Twilight like that.
In my head I see taking a hammer and smashing her horn. I see her crying and staring at me with the same hurt that it had and trying to ask me why but all I do is hit her. I hit her and hit her and hit her until she’s nothing but blood and—
I roll off of it and curl up in a ball. My stomach is twitching and hurting and all in knots. I think if I’d eaten anything before I’d be throwing it up right now.
I wrap my forelegs behind my head and curl up tighter. I’m coughing and choking and my face is wet and something it dripping onto the stone under me. I don’t look at it because my eyes are shut too tight.
I don’t want to hurt Twilight.
I don’t want to hurt my friends.
My friends love me but sometime I think they love it and they just think it’s me.
I want them to be happy, but I want to be happy, too.
And I can’t be happy when I’m just being happy.
Sometimes I don’t want to smile.