> When lights out > by BrushPrism > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was the middle of the night in Ponyville. Everypony in town has long been asleep. Well... almost everypony. Somewhere high in the sky, in big house made of clouds, Rainbow Dash was lying in her bed. As often did last time she could not sleep. She was looking at an object in her room. More precisely, it was her freshly cut hoof. She had a bloodied knife in the other hoof. Her eyes were flooded with tears. She couldn't take much of it anymore, but she knew she couldn't do what she had wanted in a long time. Yet. She spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and thinking about her life. All in all, it started with an action with Mare-Do-Well. Then she felt very lonely and was betrayed by her five best friends. then she forgave them (although they still did not know how she felt) but still she felt resentment and distrust. Her friends would sometimes say things in jokes that offended her, but she chose to laugh at it so that they wouldn't get suspicious, when in fact it hurt her badly. So about a month ago she decided to avoid them. She felt a little remorse, but then stopped when she remembered how they made her feel. She still thought she might talk to them about it, but said they would only laugh at her. Naturally, they began to worry later, but that didn't interest her. Then all the rejection letters from Wonderbolts came in and encouraged her to try next time. Sweet Celestia, she saved their lives several times, plus countless times helped to save Equestria. Sometimes she thought that everyone really hated her and spends time with her out of pity, she felt it wasn't true, but a few weeks ago there were various strange thoughts and voices in her head that she could not get rid of. These thoughts grew worse and more intrusive day by day. She couldn't take it anymore. Three days ago she began to feel someone's presence. At first it was just time and she didn't care, but today was the first day she felt like this all the time. She went to her job, but as she was the fastest flier in all of Equestria, she removed the clouds and did all her work as fast as she could. Dash had been on sick leave since the beginning of this week because she said she was feeling worse lately. Actually is wasn't really a lie because she felt worse, but more psychologically, but that nopony needed to know. As for what she did to her hoof, today she did it for the first time. She felt a little better, but now that hoof damned hurt. It was 9am when she finally fell asleep. The later she went to sleep, the later she got up. Usually it was around 3pm. Her friends started noticing that something was wrong a while ago, but told them it was her training sessions that made her join Wonderbolts. It was around 8pm when she decided to go to the town pub to forget the cruel reality. She put on a navy blue and yellow hoodie to cover her wrists more easily. ----------- It was late evening, but Applejack had some work to do on her apple farm when she saw a rainbow trail in the sky heading into the town and knew she needed to check it out. She decided that this was something important and that her remaining work could wait until tomorrow. AJ was very worried about her best friend and still felt that it was about more than just training. She saw Lyra and Bonbon on the bench. They usually spend a lot of time there during the day, so she figured they might have seen her friend. "Hey. Did you see Rainbow?" AJ asked Lyra and Bonbon as she reached their park bench. "Actually, she was headed towards the pub a while ago." said Lyra,"She seemed quite nervous." Bonbon added immediately. "Okey, thanks for your help. Bye." she shouted when she was already on her way to the indicated place and leaving the ponies quite confused. On the way she looked around the earth and sky to see if her friend had decided to leave the pub by accident. When she arrived she saw a large and loud crowd of ponies. She asked a few people if they had seen Rainbow Dash but most of the people there were either drunk or did not hear her because of how loud it was in the place. After a few minutes, she saw the familiar rainbow head in the crowd. "There you are!" she said and went towards the goal as quickly as possible. As she broke through all the ponies, she found a barely sober cyan pegasus mumbling under her breath. She noticed that RD was wearing a hoodie, which was quite strange since she never wears one, but she concluded that she would ask her how Rainbow Dash would be able to say anything intelligible. "Okay, we are going home." "Noo, I am not going anywhere with you." Dash said but Applejack chose to ignore it. After a few short protests, earth pony finally managed to place her safely on her back. When they finally left the noisy place, they headed towards Sweet Apple Acres. "I didn't know you were so light, do you eat anything at all?" And of course she got no answer except for a few incomprehensible words. After most of the way Rainbow slid off her back. "I think I should be more careful, come here." Applejack exclaimed, but as she was about to put her friend back on her back, Dash started to fly away. Luckily for AJ, drunken pegasi don't fly very well. "Oh, you are not flying anywhere," then she took out the rope and tied RD's wings and set it down where it had fallen. The rest of the journey was fairly easy. The Earth Pony carried her drunk friend to the guest room, took the rope off her back and laid her in bed. "Good night, Sugarcube." Then she left the room, turning off the light. A serious conversation awaited them in the morning.