All Was Quiet
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Twilight had woken up cold, alone, and sore on the basement floor. A thin layer of carpet hadn’t disguised the fact that the floor was concrete. A single floor lamp in the corner was lit, and nobody was in sight.
All was quiet.
“Rain...?” she’d murmured, looking around for her pillow, instead only finding her phone. 2:17 am. No sign of anyone else in the room. “Rainbow?”
Silence had answered her call. The television was black; the windows too.
Twilight had stood up, glancing around. The logical, rational part of her brain assumed that Rainbow’s disappearance could have been adequately explained by a bathroom break. However, this perspective was thrown out the window when a short glance across the room indicated that, no, the downstairs bathroom was completely unoccupied, door standing wide open.
A shiver had gone down her back. She was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and socks, but they had done little to raise her internal temperature. Cold. Too cold. Luckily her jacket was right where she’d left it, hanging over the back of the couch. The empty space next to it that once held the article’s partner was nowhere to be found. Strange.
Panic hadn't quite taken hold, but Twilight had gotten major invasion of the body snatchers creeps. Something was weird here. It was like all traces that Rainbow had ever existed were suddenly gone, but for the fact that Twilight was standing there in her girlfriend’s house.
Well, not her girlfriend. Not yet. They’d held hands and fooled around and stuff but they weren't really dating. They hadn't kissed yet, although Twilight did have a rough draft of a “plan” of sorts to rectify that. It would have culminated with waking up after dawn and cooking breakfast together, and then a spontaneous burst of bacon grease and maple syrup fueled teenage reckless abandon. A light embellishment of the results portrayed Rainbow as wearing the “kiss the cook” apron and Twilight obeying.
However, the plan was going quickly off the rails considering a major proponent of said plan was Rainbow’s presence. One can't exactly kiss someone who isn't there. Common sense. So now there was the anxiety of a plan not happening, the concern as to the sudden disappearance of her best friend, and the cold. Not just of temperature, but the chilling dread of the question she dared not ask or answer, but persisted nonetheless.
Rainbow didn't just leave her there alone...
...did she?
No, Twilight had thought. Surely there was some mistake. Maybe an emergency came up? Although it probably wasn't the case as if it truly were an emergency, she’d have been woken up. Rainbow may have a capacity for charging into problems and dangerous situations headlong but she didn't do so alone anymore nearly as much as she had in years past back in middle school. She'd come a long way from that spring break.
Twilight’s footfalls carried equal parts trepidation and anxiety. She'd been torn between sprinting up the stairs in concern and worry for her friend’s presence and well-being, and taking it slow in case speed would shatter the delicate illusion, whatever it may yet turn out to be. The stairs creaked under her weight.
Dark brown had quickly become cream as Twilight stepped onto the second floor. The first floor was basically the front door and some staircases, so while the main floor may have been the first above the basement, it was still high enough above the ground that it counted as number two.
All of the lights were off save for that of the streetlamp outside, flooding the living room with pale bluish white. The dining room was cast in darkness, as was the kitchen and hallway. Twilight had tentatively reached to turn the kitchen light on, wondering briefly if she’d find Rainbow at the fridge for a slightly belated midnight snack. But no such luck; the room remained empty.
Twilight strode into the hallway to the left of the stairs. She had passed the closet on her left, the (empty) bathroom on her right, and came to the end of the hall. To the right was the master bedroom, where Bow and Windy were surely sleeping. And to the left, Rainbow’s room.
Now, logic had dictated that Rainbow wouldn't have just left Twilight there in the basement. Right? That would’ve been rude and inconsiderate, and while Rainbow was definitely a bit brash and careless at times, and bad at reading certain social situations, but she wouldn't just leave her friend alone like that. Logic said that wouldn't have happened. But logic didn't meet Rainbow that day.
Rainbow was snoozing peacefully in her bed, tucked neatly under three comforters. The room was a mess, filled with dirty laundry, empty soda cans, half-finished discarded homework pages, CD cases, a couple of guitars, all haphazardly shoved against the walls. Posters adorned the walls covering the tacky wallpaper, powder blue with white clouds. All of these details passed through Twilight’s mind as she deflated, as if like a balloon.
Rainbow Dash left her alone in the basement.
Heat built up below Twilight’s eyes. No, there's no way. No. Rainbow wouldn't do that. A pit dropped in her stomach as she stepped back and nodded her head, moisture pooling in the corners of her eyes. A lump formed in her throat as her heart grew to feel hollow. Rainbow would have woken her up, or at least laid a blanket, or something.
Rainbow would have done at least that for her friends, for the people she cared about. For the people she loved. Fluttershy. Applejack. Pinkie Pie. Sunset. Even Rarity, though the two never really talked to each other much. Definitely Scootaloo, or any member of any of the near dozen sports teams she was a part of.
So why... why didn't she do it for Twilight?
Some providence drew Twilight to sit at the dining room table in the dark. Subconsciously she’d picked through various scraps in the kitchen. A granola bar, a packet of fruit snacks, some pita crackers and hummus. She'd eaten it without even realizing that she'd done so.
Maybe she was just taking it personally, she reasoned. Maybe Rainbow had just forgotten because she was tired. Perhaps she had operated on autopilot and just accidentally lapsed for a second. Rainbow wouldn't purposefully leave a friend like that and retire to her bedroom. Especially not in the dead of December.
Maybe maybe maybe. But all these maybes couldn't cover up the simple truths. Twilight fell asleep on Rainbow Dash. Twilight woke up alone. She woke up cold. She woke up sore. And in her room, Rainbow was sleeping like a baby. The numbers just didn't add up. It didn't make sense. It couldn't make sense.
Twilight sighed as silent tears dropped into the empty plastic container. The most logical conclusion she could come to was simple. Rainbow got up from her sleeping really-close-friend-but-not-quite-girlfriend, walked away, put on her jacket, and went to bed.
She crushed a cracker in her hand as more fell. Her breath hitched and she hunched over, trying not to sob. How pathetic it would be, to start to cry over an ultimately inconsequential sequence of events? Please. She was a big girl. This was nothing. She was fine.
Her phone buzzed. A quick glance revealed it was a text from Pinkie Pie.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TWI TWI <3<3<3” and several celebration related emojis read on the screen.
Twilight threw away the pieces of garbage from her impromptu meal, went downstairs, put her shoes on, and left the house, gently closing the front door behind her.
All was quiet.
/x/x/x/