Chapter 42: Answers? Questions.
Sunset Shimmer sat in her bed, legs dangling over the side, bare feet almost but not quite reaching the carpeted floor. As she stared across the room at the blank wall, barely illuminated by the minuscule shafts of light reluctantly let in by gaps in her light-blocking curtains, she let out a frustrated, dejected sigh.
“Why?” she asked herself.
No one answered. Her pet cactus, Albert, sat several feet away on a shelf above her bathroom sink and could not hear her because the door was closed. Even if he could, he would not answer, for he was a cactus, and Sunset had lost the ability to communicate with her succulent around the time she realized her so-called friends might not actually fit that modifier and did, in fact, care about her.
So she spoke to the empty space around her.
“Why do I feel like this? Why do I feel anything at all? Do I feel anything at all?”
She leaned over and bit her arm a few times. Only once she specifically used her humanoid canine teeth did her action manage to cause any sensation.
“Okay, so I can technically feel. Not going to double-check the results by using Mister Stabby-Stab again. That hurt. Still, even though I can experience discomfort, my insides feel… empty. And not just because I haven’t eaten today.”
Her stomach growled in miffed agreement.
“I hear you, I hear you,” she told her gut. “But I don’t care. I’m not hungry no matter what you say. Maybe if I go without for long enough I’ll just pass out again. No big loss. It’s not like I have anything to do, right?”
She flopped onto her back and turned to face her leather-bound diary that doubled as a trans-dimensional communication device, which sat silent on her bedside table underneath the window.
“Nope. Not talking to you. I know you’re my friend and all that, but I know you’ll just lecture at me if I say anything, and that’s the last thing I need right now. Definitely not going to try and talk to Her. She said She was proud of me. I’m still not sure I deserve Her praise. Caddy is busy running a damn country. Rarity is at work and, to be honest, has been acting more than a little weird lately.”
As Sunset let out another sigh, a vision of her ex-boyfriend popped into her mind, hearkening her back to a conversation from some weeks earlier.
“No, Flash. There’s no way in the seven hells my best friend is in love with me. You’ve just been reading too many of those stag comics. Granted, I read stag stories back when I lived with Her, but those were about actual stags and… I never understood the point or appeal. All I remember was there were too many plot holes and the female characters didn’t have much if any depth. She was upset when She discovered those booklets under my bed but, after I explained myself, She burst out laughing. I think that was the last time She laughed in my presence. Why.”
Sunset shifted so that she was mostly on her bed, with the exception of her right leg, which continued to dangle over the side.
“If she’s in love with me, then she’s a damned fool. I already proved I’m a terrible girlfriend once, and I’m not worthy of such feelings anyway. Still, that sexy photo-shoot she did… maybe I did badly misinterpret it. Oh well. Best to just put it out of my mind. Out of mind, out of memory. Three, two, one, and… poof! Gone.”
A buzzing sound from the living room / kitchen reminded Sunset she had forgotten to turn off her oscillating fan. She grumbled at the few extra pence that would add to her electric bill. She picked up a small smiley-face plush pillow named ‘Happy’ and spoke to it.
“I could throw caution to the wind, leave this apartment, go outside into this muggy atmosphere, head to the Barn and get myself a burrito. But I would have to get up first and I don’t feel like it. Also the no-accessible-money thing.”
Happy, being a plush, said nothing.
“I just… feel like my entire existence is being pulled in three different directions by some jaded sadistic god who has nothing better to do than make me miserable. There’s the here and now, where I’m most comfortable and want to be; there’s following up on these apparently not-too-subtle hints Flash keeps dropping; and then there’s a third direction I know nothing about except my gut tells me it can’t be good.”
Happy continued to not respond, but did its damnedest to brighten her day.
“No, I don’t want to die, particularly, but I do want this all to end. I’m just tired. I’m tired of feeling like I’m just someone’s pawn or plaything or, dare I say, avatar. I’m tired of the pointless twirling of the windmill in my mind. But, by saying that, am I inviting trouble for myself? Is the trickster god going to just make my life more unbearable? Guess I have no choice but to find out.”
Somewhere off in the distance, a dog barked.
“Again,” replied Sunset to the distraction. “Not as annoying as the alley cat who occasionally makes the fire escape outside my window its home, but still… Where in the world is this dog that barks to shatter the silence? It can’t be in this building or anywhere on this block. Too far away; it’s somewhere off in the distance, after all.”
Five floors below, at street level, a police car sped by, its siren muffled by the thick outer walls of Sunset’s apartment building, pitch rising and then falling courtesy of the Doppler effect.
“I wonder where that cop is going? Obviously not coming for me. Flash’s dad is one boy in blue who justifiably has issues with me, but I doubt he’d waste police resources trying to get me. After all, following… that little incident at CHS… he had me right where he wanted me but didn’t make a move. Maybe he’s not the crazy fascist I told him he is. Maybe I’m the crazy one. Who else but a crazy person would dream about being murdered in her sleep by her best friend via Mister Stabby-Stab? Silly. Don’t you agree, Happy?”
Happy did not reply. It simply smiled at Sunset, which made her smile back for a second, if reluctantly.
“Y’know, Happy, I’m glad Pinkie bought you for me. I scoffed when she said you would cheer me up but, dammit, you’re just so soft and smile, I can’t help but feel comforted by your presence. I think maybe I should get some sleep; I have no idea how long I’ve been awake. Two hours? Twenty? My thoughts are just that: axon firings in the cerebral cortex, mostly the frontal lobe and amygdala, trying to convince the rest of my brain that someone will smack me in the head seventeen times with a blunt object. Logic says that possibility is absurd…”
A gust of wind blew against her window, causing the aged glass panes to briefly shudder.
“…but for twenty-six years, I’ve lived in some pretty absurd worlds, haven’t I? Well then, I just have to take life as it comes. I think that’s one of the many lessons You tried to teach me that I failed, isn’t it? Now’s as good a time to start as any.”