These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me

~ My Immortal, Evanescence

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My name is Rainbow Dash, the presumed 'Element of Loyalty', known for that name for my endless loyalty towards my friends and those I care about. I don't mean to be a bragging type of pony, but without proving the loyal side of me many Pegasi, Earth ponies, and Unicorns simply wouldn't believe me.

Friendship has always been important to me, even when it didn't seem like it; being the hard-headed, ambitious Pegasus I am I don't have time to show my feelings towards others because I'm so busy with my own emotions. I knew from the moment I crashed into Twilight the first day we met, I knew she and I would be destined to be friends, no matter what it took. And so, the six of us: Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Twilight and myself became the best of friends within day one of Twilight coming to Ponyville, and the bond between each and every one of us continued on and on until the fateful day when Pinkie Pie died by suicide.

That was when everything started going downhill.

I had been at Fluttershy's house, watching over her animals while she went to the store to get them some more food when her phone began to ring. I quickly ran to it, picked up the receiver and asked who it was, only to have Twilight answer back; her words were barely understandable from the sobs that were coming from the other line. I had asked her what in the hay was going on, and she spoke five words I will never forget:

"Pinkie Pie is dead, Rainbow..."

I went into the biggest shock I was sure anypony could have had. Unable to process anything I hung up on Twilight, bid Fluttershy's animals goodbye and flew out the window, my vision a blur and my mind clouded as I flew towards Sugarcube Corner's second floor, where Pinkie Pie stayed. My best friend, the one that could always make me laugh on my hardest days... She was dead... I couldn't grasp it. I didn't want to believe it, yet I knew it had happened...

It broke my heart to see my best friend there, inside of her house with blood around her and a gun at her side, with a hole in the side of her head. It was unbelieveable.

A funeral was held for Pinkie a few days after all of Ponyville -even the Princesses and Shining Armor- heard about her death. Many -if not all of them- were dressed in all black, mourning for a beloved party pony they all knew so well. None of the other girls hadn't come, for they were too disraught to see one of their best friends sink six feet into the ground. So, that left me to go solo to her funeral, without anypony there to comfort me besides Princess Luna, Princess Cadance and Shining Armor. Princess Celestia simply showed no emotion whatsoever, much to my distaste. I never knew Princess Celestia, the ruler of our land could be so cold-hearted. But that day I knew all good and well that she was not the elegant Princess all of Ponyville claimed she was.

I never got to tell Pinkie Pie how much... How much I loved her. And thinking about it now, I wish I would have instead of kicking her out of the library during one of her rants about Gummy's birthday party a few years ago.

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"So, so, so!" Pinkie Pie shouted, bouncing around the library where Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight, Applejack and I stood watching her. "Are you guys gonna come to Gummy's party this weekend?"

"Well, darling," Rarity said, tapping her hoof to her chin as if to come up with a good excuse. "I've got some fashion work I need to finish up, but after that I'll try and come!"

"I have animals to feed..." Fluttershy added while hiding her eyes behind her mane, obviously thinking that Pinkie -happy go lucky Pinkie Pie- would get mad at her for saying that. "I'm so sorry, Pinkie Pie."

"I've, um..." Twilight looked around the room awkwardly as if pondering the offer. "I've got to dust all my books. Don't you see how ragged they look?" she used her magic to scrap some dust off of the table and onto a book without anypony looking and holding it up for emphasis.

"I've gotta work on the farm," Applejack quickly stated. "Big Mac and Apple Bloom can't handle all that by themselves!"

Pinkie Pie looked over at me anxiously; oh, great... that left me, didn't it?

"Are you able to come, Dashie?"

Yup, it did.

"I c-can't, Pinkie... I've gotta train for the Wonderbolts Academy coming up."

"Ohhh, pleaseeeeeee?" Pinkie begged, jumping up and down in front of me with a pleading look on her face.

"I can't, Pinkie..." I said, hoping she'd believe my lie. I don't think any of us need to come -and by the excuses everypony was making it seemed as if none of them wanted to go anyways.

"Why not?" Pinkie asked, sounding heartbroken. "Can't you just come-"

"I said I can't, Pinkie Pie!" I shouted, and the words sounded harsher than I intended them too. She flinched at my words, her eyes dull and her poofy mane and tail slightly straightened in sadness and defeat. Without any other words to any of us Pinkie turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her and trekking her way back to Sugarcube Corner.

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Ring... Ring... Ring...!

I sat up in my bed immediately, shaking from fear and tears welling in my eyes. That dream again... Why couldn't I let that go? It wasn't my fault that Pinkie died all those years ago, and the rest of the Elements of Harmony had all moved on with their lives, all happily married and had foals of their own...

Was it?

With a slightly ignorant groan I shifted my weight onto one of my wings, turning off my alarm clock's senseless beeping. I sighed and lay back against the pillow once more, staring straight at the ceiling with nothing better to do. That's basically what I did all day: sit around in my cloud house, staring at the ceiling for hours on end, watching my life waste away day by day, night after night... It was endless cycle, and I wasn't about it stop it anytime soon.

I'd been doing an awful lot of thinking these past few years, and the isolation I had been in was just fine with me. I didn't need anyone. I was the Element of Loyalty, I didn't need anypony for help or care!

Or did I?

That was one question I couldn't answer for myself.

With all of my effort I slowly spread my wings and was soon hovering over my bed, my wings flapping like they had no source of energy; thus I fell face-first into the fluffiness that was my floor (living in a house entirely made out of clouds, you don't need to worry about getting hurt.) and rose my head to an annoyed huff. Rising slowly to my hooves I contemplated the scrap of duties I had to do today: clean the house, dust my shelves, and then go and get some food for my pet owl, Hoot (Tank had died shortly after Pinkie, not that I was surprised. The poor turtle was getting old anyway.), then go back to bed for the rest of the day and stare at the ceiling. I needed to look half decent; I didn't need to look like a homeless wreck (though I sure felt like one at the moment).

I scarcely recalled the time that Pinkie had gone insane over the assumption that we forgot all about her party for Gummy. Her coat and mane became so much duller and straighter during her insanity scene. I'm not exactly sure how it had happened, but it was happening to me now.

My mane and tail were practically lifeless compared to their former vitality, each patterned with the bright colors of the rainbow, hence my name. The long hairs were a gray and an assorted hybrid of colors. My coat also visibly dulled; hat used to be sky-blue color was now almost a dull, pale blue with multiple splatters of gray lining every inch of my body.

I smiled slight for the first time in years as I remembered the times when stallions of all kinds used to make small, flirty comments about my eyes; bright and full of life they pulled off the magnificent color of a magenta pink. Now? They resembled a dull, baby pink with no life left in them. I had watched my life fall apart right before my eyes, and now it was taking its toll on my body.

You see, when a pony loses all hope, they lose their color and become gray. The more horribly depressed they are, the less color they have.

I thought I was at the lowest possible point in my life, considering how there is nearly no color left in that mirror in front of me, although I can still pick out the blue color of my coat and the vibrant colors of my mane still in. At least I still had some of my identity left, even it wasn't that much.

My chest was filled with the most unbearable, burning sensation I ever felt. Almost as though an entire part of my heart was missing or had been cut out. I had done my research before, if an emotion was strong enough, you could physically feel its effects. Right now, I was learning that depression, loneliness, and helplessness were more painful than being split in two.

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"Pinkie Pie?" I asked, banging on her bedroom door one final time.

She finally opened the door, her mane and tail straighter than it had ever been. "P-Pinkie..." I whispered, horrified at what I saw in my best friend. "Your mane and tail..."

"See what you've done, Rainbow Dash?" Pinkie snarled, her eyes narrowing upon me in a manner I knew wasn't friendly. "You've made me this way. You've caused me to be like this!"

"N-No, Pinkie... I d-d-didn't mean that to h-h-happen!"

"Liar!" Pinkie shouted so loud I was sure she would break one of her windows in her room. "Look around you, Rainbow Dash. Look at all the pain you've caused us all!" She suddenly had a light green aura surrounding her before it faded away, and a Changeling took her place. It had slimy green eyes, crimson red stained teeth, blood red hooves, and a blood red mane to match it's sharp teeth that were alos coated with blood.

I obeyed her out of fear and turned to find all of my friends; Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, and even Spike had their coats, manes, tails, eyes and teeth the same as the Changelings. I realized with a stab of fear that they were all just like it.

Your friends were never there," The Pinkie Pie-body stealing Changeling triumphantly gloated. "They never cared because they were never your friends!"

"Th-that's n-n-not true!" I stuttered, not feeling right in my own body.

"Just face it, Rainbow Dash..." All of the Changelings were ganging up on me now, closing me in a tight space I would never get out of. They all laughed heartily in my face, acid spraying out of their mouths and burning my flesh. And as I cried out from the pain, I heard three words that nearly stopped my heart:

You're all alone!"

My world went black then, and I knew no more.

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I wake with a start, shaking and sweating from my ordeal. I was still in my cloud house, though it felt as if I were in the center of Ponyville with no hair on my body. I felt that exposed.

I rushed into my bathroom and closed my door, staring at my image in the mirror and gasping in horror.

I was entirely gray. There was no more color in my mane, blue in my coat, or magenta in my eyes; it was all in gray. I, the Element of Loyalty, was completely gray in both color and mind. I couldn't believe it; in fact, I didn't want to believe it. And I knew exactly what this meant. I was completely, utterly, 100%, in deep in despair, depression, and sadness.

And I felt it.

The pain in my chest was still there. My breathing is shaky and I'm still sniffling from crying earlier. I don't know what to do anymore. There was nopony in the world that would care if I were dead. Not Twilight, not Rarity, not Rarity, not Applejack, nopony at all.

No pony at all…

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For years I've felt nothing but the agony and pain of being isolated from the world. For years I've felt nothing but the killing loneliness that formed when our friendship dissolved.

For years, I just wanted to pain to end. I just wanted the pain, the suffering, the memories of Pinkie's death ringing clear in my mind day after day, night after night, causing me to not get any sleep to end...

I couldn't help but think that maybe -just maybe- if I did something different or just said something, I wouldn't be in the mess I am today. Heck, I would be nowhere near as depressed as I am now if I even had at least one of my old friends to write to.

But even if I do write to them, they'll never answer. It's always the same response I get from any of them: nothing.

Now was my chance to end to pain.

And nopony was going to stop me.

Maybe if I was lucky enough, I could see Pinkie again, tell her how much I cried and mourned for her after her death...

I sighed and looked my reflection in the mirror. This wasn't the ambitious Rainbow Dash everypony once knew. No, it was an entirely new Rainbow Dash.

I was Rainbow Dash, the Pegasus nopony cared about.

It really hurt to think of myself as that. But it was who I was, who I had become... I couldn't change it now.

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I flew towards the Everfree Forest with my saddlebag in tow. I knew what I had to do to end the pain. I knew I had to do it or I would be haunted by the memories forever.

I flew to the ground hastily, wanting to get this over with, and doing so I reach into my saddlebag; inside of it was a rope, tied into a noose.

I flapped my wings and flew up to the base of the tree, where the largest and highest branch was. This was it... This was my time.

Tying the rope onto the base of the trunk where nopony could find me, I lassoed myself into the noose like Applejack would cattle, wrapping it tightly around my neck. Allowing my wings to fall to my sides I let myself go limp, my breathing hitching as the noose tightens around my neck, cutting off my air supply. I struggle and wriggle, trying to get out of my trap yet I don't use my wings to aide me in this. I don't need them; I need to struggle so I will do it faster.

I let out my last dying breath, my vision clouding and going black.

I watch my form from above as a spirit, with Pinkie Pie once more... Watching over Ponyville and all of Equestria through dazzling magenta eyes. And more often than not I will go to my death spot, where the noose is still firmly loassoed around my neck.

I had died with a smile on my face.

A smile of happiness... A smile of contempt.