An alarm clock rang and rang throughout a small cabin at the southwestern edge of the village as it had been doing for the past fifteen minutes. With absolutely no sign of convincing the cabin’s occupant to get out of bed. The cabin itself was absolutely cluttered with an assortment of papers, writing utensils, scattered journals, beakers, test tubes, broken lab equipment, medical tools and devices, plates of half eaten food, and other trash that turned what was probably at one time a cozy cabin into a garbage heap. The central table in the cabin was itself covered in charts and graphs, some kind of scientific or medical report that was written in nothing but complex jargon.
The one area that wasn’t a complete mess was the bed and a few surrounding shelves and cabinets that likely contained the occupants non-work related trinkets and clothes. Whoever was using the bed right now was completely under the covers, a quilt of wildflowers that moved about as the pony writhed underneath them. On a nightstand next to the bed opposite the alarm clock there sat a half-drunk mug of coffee. Ice cold by now, abandoned late last night. Along with it was a stained piece of paper showing some more test results with the word “negative” repeated over and over.
The alarm kept continuing to ring and ring some more while the bed’s occupant grumbled. They were awake, they just didn’t want to admit it yet.
A window above the bed was even shining light right onto it as if the whole world was saying “get up”. The drapes hadn’t been closed the night before—a horrible mistake that would not be made again. A banging sound then came from the bed as the pony in it accidentally clonked their head on the headboard in the middle of their shuffling. Surprisingly they didn’t so much as groan or grunt in pain, but it was enough for them to realize that they should get out of bed.
An indigo hoof rose out of the covers… and then smashed the alarm clock to pieces.
“Better. A waste, but better...” the groggy voice of a unicorn mare said as she sat up and tossed the flowery quilt off herself. Bleary eyes blinked from underneath a mane of vibrant orange and the mare took a big yawn before looking at the destroyed remains of her clock and sliding out of bed completely.
She was a relatively young mare, mid-20’s at the oldest, with heavy bags under her eyes that weren’t only caused by a single night’s exhaustion. She looked down at her destroyed alarm clock and rolled her eyes before walking around the bed and going towards a door in the cabin. Opening it up she walked into her bathroom and turned the faucet on the sink, splashing some water into her face before grabbing a towel and wiping it down.
There were red blotches on the towel when she pulled it away from her face. The mare frowned and looked at the mirror above the sink but there were no cuts on her face. Turning her hooves over she saw the culprit—a cut she had gained on her hoof she used to smack her alarm clock. She hadn’t noticed it until now. Looking down at the floor she noticed a trail of blood drops on the floor (and several things on the floor) leading all the way back to her bed.
“Perfect. Just perfect. What a way to start the day,” the mare sighed and reached into her medicine cabinet to pull out a package of band-aids, placing one over the cut on her hoof.
After that she grabbed a comb and a brush and started getting her mane in order, the errant locks were combed down and her frayed ends were pulled back into a tight ponytail. When she was done her emerald eyes were no longer obscured and a black hair-clip above her left eye made sure that nothing would fall out of place. Since that looked good enough to her she left the bathroom and walked back to one of the cabinets beside her bed, pulling out a white doctor’s coat from inside and putting it on in one swift motion. At the same time she levitated the mug of coffee with her red magic and carried it with her into the small kitchen of the cabin, dumping it and its contents into the sink.
She let out a slow breath of air and paused for a moment before grabbing some oats and a small bar of chocolate out of a cupboard. She would’ve liked to have some actual cooked oatmeal for breakfast but she didn’t want to waste anymore time this morning after struggling to get herself out of bed for so long. There was work to be done in town. The kind of work that didn’t wait for her.
“Not like there’s any point to it...” the cynical thought couldn’t help but slip out through her lips before she pushed it back down and shook her head. “Stop it, stop it. Don’t get like that.”
She ate her meager breakfast and stepped to her front door, once more stopping in front of it and trying to collect her thoughts before she finally managed to turn the knob with her magic and step outside. It was a bright and sunny day, a big contrast to the heavy storm that had happened just recently. But this beautiful day didn’t change anything else about what was going on in Pinetree Warren. The doctor stepped off her front porch and onto the grassy ground, her home away from the more crowded center of the village.
Idly she looked north, past the buildings and the trees, until she saw the same green haze that had been there for a while now. She didn’t know why she even bothered looking anymore, but one day she hoped she’d finally be able to look and it would be gone.
As she walked northwest to her place of work, she looked around at the various buildings and homes she passed. There used to be a time when ponies would be out to greet her every step of the way. When young fillies and colts would be out playing around. Nowadays pretty much everyone stayed indoors unless they had business. And thanks to several warning signs and roadblocks, they didn’t really have any visitors randomly coming in either.
Just about the only pony who was out was one of the village’s oldest residents, Ardent Elm, an old unicorn wizard who lived in a cabin also on the outskirts of the city. Pinetree Warren and many of the other towns and hamlets around it had a sizable unicorn population, but few ponies strove to really study or practice magic seriously. Ardent Elm was probably the only one who knew anything of the higher mysteries. She herself only used magic for mundane purposes, even though Ardent Elm had taught her and most other unicorns in the village a thing or two when they were younger. Ardent Elm was out right now watering an assortment of plants he kept in front of his cabin that he used for potions and magical ingredients—and which doctors like her also sometimes used for medicinal purposes.
“Hello, doctor,” the wizened old stallion nodded to her.
The lack of a good morning wasn’t lost on her. No one in town said that anymore.
“Hello, Ardent,” she nodded back, unable to muster a smile.
And that was it. No one had time or the energy to connect anymore, or make small talk. She walked past Ardent Elm like he was practically a stranger. The only other ponies she saw out were ones quickly walking back home with some groceries, or quickly walking from their home to get some groceries. And a stallion or two doing yard work or home repair. Hundreds of ponies lived here but it was practically a ghost town.
She glanced north at the green haze in the forest. No surprise why things were the way they were.
After walking on the outside of most of town to avoid the denser parts, she made it to her destination. At one point it had been the town’s auditorium, where meetings and events were held, but it had been requisitioned into a hospital due to their doctor’s office being far too small to deal with anything like this. Now the office was used purely to run tests and every patient, doctor, nurse, and volunteer came to this auditorium to do their work. Numerous tents were set up attached to and around it to make the triage center even larger, there were wooden roadblocks and ropes set up telling the other citizens of Pinetree Warren to not come any further as well.
Doctor Anathema walked right by all of that to the front door of the auditorium. The forest north of here had even more warning signs around it and the doctors normally didn’t go that far either. She opened up the already unlocked door without knocking and walked inside. The small lobby was occupied by the only other doctor in town, her older contemporary, Doctor Swab, and the two nurses who had the shift today, Heartwrench and Blue Rose. Doctor Swab was a unicorn like she was, the nurses were earth ponies. Several equipment lockers lined one side of the room while most of the rest was overflowing with discarded papers and notebooks not unlike Anathema’s own home.
“Ah, Doctor Anathema, did you sleep well?” Doctor Swab asked her. “I know you didn’t want to take a day off but-”
She quickly cut him off. “It’s fine, I ended up having trouble waking up this morning so I guess you were right. How are the patients?”
Doctor Swab grimaced and looked at the doors that led into the main auditorium. Heartwrench and Blue Rose despondently looked down as well. “No change.”
Anathema sighed. “So they’re not getting any worse for the moment but they haven’t responded to the latest treatment either.”
“I’m afraid so,” Doctor Swab nodded.
Anathema closed her eyes and let out a deep breath through her nose. She opened them again and looked at the lockers. “Well, let’s get in there. I’d like to do a routine check up to see how everyone is feeling myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. I did a visual check previously and took samples of the infected areas from some of the patients, but that was all,” Doctor Swab said.
“I see,” Anathema nodded. “I’ll do a more thorough examination and see if any of our patients are up for talking, you can get the samples back to the lab at our old office.” She looked at the nurses. “Heartwrench? Blue Rose? You’ll be helping me out.”
“Of course, Doctor,” Heartwrench said.
“Do you think any of them are going to be able to speak with you?” Blue Rose asked. “Yesterday they were...”
“I don’t expect much, but I hope I can get a few words from some of them at least,” Doctor Anathema replied. She went over to a locker and opened it up, revealing it to be full of thick rubber gloves, eye-guards, masks, and white jumpsuits. “Now get dressed, like always be sure to burn the disposable clothes when done, disinfect the rest, and take a thorough shower in the decontamination shower out back.”
“Yes, Doctor,” both nurses replied and together the three mares got ready for their necessary but distressing job.
In a minute they were bedecked in their protective gear and standing in front of the door that took them to the main room of the auditorium. The door had a plastic sheet over it that stretched from floor to ceiling and could be zipped open or closed. With her magic, Doctor Anathema pulled the zipper up and then pushed the double doors open.
Inside was what could only be called a nightmare of diseased origin.
The auditorium was kept almost deathly cold due to it seeming to slow down and weaken the symptoms of the disease. The doctor didn’t do so much as shiver as she walked into it. Rows upon rows of sick stallions, mares… and children filled the auditorium. All of them lying on their own bed in a wretched state. They were covered in growths and spots of green fungus that discolored their skin wherever it spread, whether you were red, yellow, or blue, it turned everything into an ugly sickly green. Only a few spots of the ponies’ original coats shone through at this point. The more green, the worse an infected got.
And so far nothing had worked to reverse any of this. Stopping and stalling had been the best they could do. Delaying the sad, painful, inevitable.
Most of the ponies in here didn’t have the strength to even moan in pain anymore, or had gotten used to it. Even the children barely whined for how much the disease sapped their strength.
Anathema walked to the nearest bed, the two nurses behind her, and came around to the pillow of the patient. A middle-aged stallion by the name of Steady Wheel, he was a carpenter in Pinetree Warren. Anathema checked his eyes, he was awake but staring off into nothingness, and she checked the rest of his body as well. The green hadn’t proceeded since her last inspection, but hadn’t receded either. His breathing was labored but steady, and his temperature stable.
“Steady Wheel? How are you feeling today? Can you talk to me?” Doctor Anathema asked him.
He continued to breath and stare off into the distance, practically comatose, and not even acknowledge her at all.
Anathema sighed and leaned away from him, moving onto the next bed.
The check-ups proceeded mostly like that for all of them. A few ponies moved a little more, or made more noise than just breathing, but almost none of them had the strength or will to actually speak. One of the ones that did was a filly who was one of the most recent patients, the green hadn’t spread over as much of her body as most others. She shook with pain that she still had trouble managing as Doctor Anathema approached her bedside.
“Hello, Turnip. Has there been any change or improvement in your condition since we last spoke?”
Turnip’s eyes turned to look at her, the most Anathema had gotten out of any patient so far.
“Turnip?” Anathema asked again.
“I want… to die,” the filly squeaked out.
Heartwrench stepped forward to the filly’s bedside on the opposite side of Anathema. She started lovingly rubbing her mane, even though she technically shouldn’t. “Please don’t say things like that, Turnip. We’re all working hard to cure you and the others.”
Turnip’s eyes slowly turned to look at her. “Mom died. Dad died. I’m going to die. We’re all… going… to die.”
Heartwrench and Blue Rose both looked pleading to Doctor Anathema, who merely shook her head.
“Get some rest, Turnip. Keep up your strength,” the doctor said.
The filly didn’t even look at her this time.
None of the other speaking ponies had anything good to say either. They felt as miserable as last time Anathema spoke to them. In a way, she wanted to consider that progress, since it meant they weren’t worse after two more days. But they weren’t close to being cured or healthy again either. With any luck, the samples Doctor Swab was analyzing right now would give them some clue if their latest treatment had any sort of effect. If it did they could work from there to try and keep improving it.
Doctor Anathema wasn’t holding out hope. Medical science had done next to nothing for them when it came to this plague.
After the rounds were done, the gloves and masks were disposed of in a bin that would itself be taken to the incinerator in the auditorium’s basement. The jumpsuits and eye-guards were removed to go through special cleaning later, and the three mares went out back where their normal clothes would be washed and a decontamination tent was strung up for them to go through. The shower was almost scalding hot but Anathema just stood in it like it was nothing. Longer than she needed to. Heartwrench and Blue Rose were out much faster.
Anathema merely stared at the shower knob until steam completely fogged her vision, then she turned it off and stepped out, her skin raw and blistered in places. She didn’t feel it and neither nurse said anything. With the shower over, the three of them took an anti-biotic and a drink of water before leaving the tent, now wearing temporary yellow gowns made of paper until their clothes were washed.
“Shouldn’t have even bothered getting ready this morning,” Anathema snorted. Though she knew why she did it—to set the patients at ease as best she could and look professional. If she came in as an apathetic, disheveled, mess, it didn’t speak well. Though judging by how the patients had been… she doubted any of them cared or noticed.
The three mares walked around the auditorium and entered another tent back near the front. This was probably the least messy of all the tents and places she worked now. A wooden picnic table sat in the middle of it, with a few boxes and a cooler filled with ice near the side of the tent, an airtight water barrel, and a single temporary bookcase full of journals and binders. Anathema used her magic to pull a journal from the bookcase and sat down with it, a cup of pens and pencils already sitting on the table. Heartwrench meanwhile went to the cooler and removed some ice while Blue Rose opened a box and retrieved three wooden flagons.
Together the nurses opened up the water barrel, dipping the flagons into it and then plunking some ice into them before bringing them over to the table. One for each mare.
While the nurses drank their water, Anathema wrote in her journal about the conditions of the patients and how the rounds had went. It was pretty much the same old thing she had written down the last few times but it was still important to keep a record. When she finished writing she pinched the bridge of her nose and grabbed her flagon to take a single cool sip.
“Do you think Doctor Swab will come back with good news?” Heartwrench asked her.
The question surprised Anathema and she almost dropped her flagon.
“Um, s-sorry for asking!” Heartwrench apologized.
“No, no, it’s okay...” Anathema shook her head. “But… I don’t think we should be getting our hopes up for anything at this point. We should just do what we can.”
“Right...” Heartwrench nodded, looking down into her flagon.
Blue Rose reached over to comfort her. “It’ll be alright. One day.”
Anathema was going to get back to her drink when the three of them all heard hooves running towards the tents from the direction of town. She frowned and stood up, the nurses following her, and opened up the tent to see Doctor Swab and a unicorn pony from town called Honey Sight running to the auditorium and tents. Doctor Swab saw her standing at the tent and waved a hoof, running to her with Honey Sight in tow.
“Doctor Anathema!” Doctor Swab yelled.
She and the nurses trotted out of the tent, her eyes looking at the beleaguered Honey Sight, He wasn’t a volunteer or part of the medical team at all, he was just some bird watcher from Pinetree Warren. “What’s going on? What is it?”
Doctor Swab glanced over at Honey Sight. “Tell her.”
Honey Sight caught his breath and walked up to Anathema. “I-I saw something just now, while I was bird watching!” He panted. “I was on my roof with my binoculars and looking out at the forest.”
Anathema nodded along, knowing Honey Sight’s home was close to the north edge of the village. “And?”
“There was a pony. A pegasus, she came flying towards Pinetree Warren just a moment ago but she… she flew into the green clouds north of the village,” Honey Sight said.
“Right through the epicenter,” Doctor Swab said.
Anathema’s eyes widened and Heartwrench and Blue Rose gasped in shock.
“She… she must’ve been a pegasus from the Weeping Mountain on a trip. She couldn’t have known about the plague,” Doctor Swab said.
“I-I didn’t think I should come through the barricades without permission, so I went to your office first and Doctor Swab was there,” Honey Sight said.
“What do we do?” Heartwrench asked.
“Did you notice if she did anything else?” Anathema asked Honey Sight.
He shook his head. “Not really. She flew through the clouds for a little bit and then I saw her fall and lost vision on her.”
“She has to be dead,” Blue Rose said. “Consistent direct exposure, and at that amount, is fatal in minutes, the green will completely consume and devour a pony’s body.”
“I concur,” Doctor Swab nodded. “It pains me to say but-”
“We’re going to get her,” Anathema said.
All eyes looked to her, including the disbelieving ones of Doctor Swab. “B-But Doctor Anathema, the danger of going so close to the epicenter, for a pony who’s surely dead-”
“We don’t know that she’s dead. What we do know for sure is that she’ll need our help,” she narrowed her eyes. “Why did you come here in such a hurry otherwise?”
Doctor Swab looked away in shame. “I… I’m sorry.”
“We became doctors for a reason, Swab,” she looked at Heartwrench and Blue Rose. “You became nurses for a reason. This pegasus, alive or dead, needs us. As long as we don’t get too close to the epicenter or come in contact with the spores directly it will be alright, we put on our protective gear and get out there. Bring a stretcher too. So let’s move, now.”
The two doctors and two nurses got into motion immediately, quickly running back to the auditorium lobby to get every bit of protective gear they needed on once again. Honey Sight was told to go back to his home and take a shower. Once they were ready, a stretcher was taken from another one of the tents around the building and unfolded. The group then made their way north around the building and towards the green haze that existed just beyond, further into the forest. They had to be very careful. A perimeter of markers still existed out here, but any further than that and they risked coming into contact with the spores. These jumpsuits would probably have to be burned too instead of just washed.
“How far out do you think the pegasus is?” Doctor Swab’s muffled voice asked.
“Hopefully not too far… if they, or their body, are still within the haze there’s nothing we can do,” Anathema replied.
Concentrated amounts of the spores and fungus would eat through their suits in a short amount of time. Anathema clenched her jaw shut—it was a lesson unfortunately learned too late by the late Doctor Jazz Dance. So they had to move a little slowly through the forest. Here the trees weren’t too thick just yet and they could get around easy. The further they moved from town the harder it would be to see any pegasus lying on the ground. But Anathema was going to make sure they didn’t leave before finding them.
Even if there was no point to it. She was still a doctor.
They had to keep moving deeper into the forest, deeper than any of them truly wanted to go. At least it was still the middle of the day and there wasn’t any clouds or bad weather out to make things worse. But the green haze and the clouds floating above the trees were starting to fill their vision more.
“We can’t go much further,” Doctor Swab said. “One more line of trees.”
Anathema frowned beneath her mask but didn’t say anything. She knew he was right, and he was just being safe, but she didn’t want to give up either. It just felt wrong.
“Hold on, I think I see something through the trees,” Blue Rose said and pointed ahead. “It’s colorful—but it might just be flowers.”
Anathema looked too to where Blue Rose was pointing and saw some dashes of red, yellow, and blue. She wasn’t sure if that was their pegasus but since it wasn’t just a bunch of green it was a decent sign.
“Let’s go,” she said and had the others painstakingly wheel the stretcher through the trees and over the forest floor. They had to go through more trees, avoid bushes, and stumble about to find the right spot, all while keeping aware of how close they were to the plague’s epicenter. At last they passed through a few close-knit pine trees and came out into a small clearing.
Where a blue pegasus mare lied on the ground, unmoving.
“Checking her vitals, get the stretcher ready,” Doctor Anathema said as she went over to the mare. There were green blotches all over her, but she wasn’t covered in them like Anathema and the others expected her to be after flying right through the epicenter. Anathema made sure that only the thick rubber gloves at the end of her hooves came directly in contact with the mare, and otherwise used her magic if she could.
“I don’t understand… shouldn’t she be decaying by now?” Doctor Swab said.
“Maybe Honey Sight was wrong about seeing her fly right into the clouds?” Heartwrench said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Anathema said and opened the pegasus’s eyelids, looking for any reaction and getting what she wanted when the pupils dilated. “She’s alive.” She checked her pulse—it was weak but there, and there was a small rising and falling of her chest. “But barely. We need to get her to the auditorium and get treatment started asap. Doctor Swab, help me put her on the stretcher.”
Together the two unicorns lifted the mare with their magic and put her onto the stretcher, Nurses Heartwrench and Blue Rose then buckled her in.
“She’s a rather colorful pony, isn’t she?” Doctor Swab remarked.
Anathema nodded in agreement and looked down at her spotty green body—for a second she thought she saw one of the green spots grow smaller but it must’ve been her eyes playing tricks on her. As they wheeled the mare out of the forest, she stirred slightly on the stretcher and moaned. Anathema reached down and tenderly rubbed her shoulder.
“You’re alright, you’re going to be alright.”