Pain encompassed the unicorns' entire body as she slowly regained consciousness. She couldn't quite make out her surroundings, seeing as she had a thick liquid filled in her eyes. Slowly, the liquid slid down her muzzle and into her mouth as she stood. She knew the taste... The taste of blood. That terrible metallic taste.
Anxiety began to take over the lavender unicorn as she started panicking. Her head throbbed painfully as she moved, forcing her to fall on her side. As she lay there ever the more weakening, she slowly reached up and wiped the blood from her eyes. Her mind told her to reach up and examine her injury, but she was quite afraid of what might be there. She could have anything from a major head injury to a simply cut that was just bleeding badly. The throbbing pain that grew with every breath indicated it was the former.
'Alright Twilight... Calm down and think. You're smart, you can fix this.' With a shaky hoof, she reached up and examined her head. She began to hyperventilate slightly as she ran her hoof across her forehead, revealing a large gash that ran across the entire width of it. She pulled her hoof away and examined it. Her entire hoof was now soaked in the thick crimson substance, which began to make Twilight's stomach gurgle.
Knowing she had to calm herself, she took a few breaths and began to examine her immediate surroundings. Although there wasn't much to see... The only notable elements in the barren void around her was the cold fog that slowly moved throughout the entire place. Other than that, it was pure blackness as far as she could see.
'Where am I? She began to carefully try to remember how she had gotten here. The last thing she remembered was Spike heading down into the kitchen. After that, it was a blank page. But that still didn't answer the question as to where she was. With a quivery breath, she stood again on shaky legs. The movement unsettling her stomach, causing her to spew a mix of bile and blood from her mouth. As she looked down at what she had just expelled from her stomach, which was mostly blood, she fell to the ground once more.
The whole situation seemed hopeless to her. Whatever had happened, she feared she wouldn't be leaving this place. Her thoughts turned instead from her situation to her friends, who would miss her dearly. Her eyelids slowly growing heavy, she prepared to pass peacefully away. Then she heard it... A voice so familiar, yet so strangely foreign to her echoed out quietly across the void.
"I love you like a daughter. Her head slightly perked up. There was a bit more after that, but it was more quiet and inaudible. She knew the voice from somewhere, but her mind continuously drew a blank on whom the voice belonged to. She slowly closed her eyes again and prepared for her eternal slumber. Right before drifting off, she felt a small bit of liquid hit her right hoof, followed immediately by another on her muzzle. Within mere seconds a cooling drizzle of rain began, washing the crimson from her in a river of grime and blood.
The cool liquid felt good on her overheated body, and even served to make the cut less painful. She was pretty sure she had a fever, which was dangerous considering she didn't think she was even near a town. The rain also served to give Twilight some hope. She was highly dehydrated, but knew she couldn't drink the blood filled water around her, lest she vomit again. She struggled to stand upright, but fell down to the ground once more. Finally, with a yell of pain and determination, she stood on her shaky legs and took a single step forward.
'Okay Twilight, you can do this...' Each step a struggle to both keep from collapsing and a war in her stomach to keep from vomiting her remaining fluids. Looking back, she saw a sight that nearly made her lose the war with her stomach. Where she had been laying was a massive pool of crimson and bile. Judging from the amount of blood, she had been out for at least a hour or two. What worried her most was that the wound hadn't even attempted to close. Sure, it was a large one, but she would think that it would at least clot up a tiny bit.
Not wanting to think about how dangerous that amount of blood loss was, she decided to shakily continue on. For five minutes she walked, making it no more than about thirty feet. Panic began to set in as she realized that no matter where she went, where she looked, her surrounding were exactly the same. It was the same exact thing for miles. Deciding that walking any further was a complete waste of time, she slowly lowered herself to her haunches and looked at the inviting water before her.
'Don't care if it's clean or not... So thirsty.' With a lick of her lips, she leaned down and began to drink the small pools of water around her. She couldn't help but notice that the ground was completely smooth, as if made from the finest of marble. It was also black as night, the pools of water only seen by the reflecting of light from somewhere.
After drinking enough to at least restore her energy and cure her dehydration, she scooped up a bit more between her hooves and started applying the cool substance to her hot wound. Each application of water served to make her feel a bit better, but she also continuously wished that she had something to fix the wound. She would even accept a pack of small bandages used for healing small scrapes.
Even though she was strong, she couldn't help but start crying. Pressure slowly grew behind her eyes, followed by tears beginning to well in her eyes. Quickly, she stopped the tears so as not to lose any more precious water, but not before a single tear escaped and fell from her cheek. The drizzle slowly began to turn into a pour down of liquids, soaking Twilight to the bone. But she had no worries about it, since it began to cool her body back to a normal temperature.
Needing more liquids and thinking it best to not drink from the ground, she looked into the sky and opened her mouth. Closing her eyes as the cool water washed the remaining crimson from her face, she happily took in the refreshing water. Even though she was worried, she began to feel a twang of hope. Wherever she was, her friends would find her.
Feeling more energy in her still weak body, she decided it best not to remain here. Even if there was the smallest chance that this void wasn't everlasting, she had to try. What's the worst that can happen from her moving? No matter where she stayed, the wound would continue bleeding. Best if she continued on and at least tried to look for something to help her.
The steps she took were still hard to make, but much easier now that she wasn't as dehydrated. As she walked, the only thing that kept her going was the thought of seeing her friends again. She wondered how worried they were... But at the same time she was worried about finding them. She would never want to show up looking like this, since it would make them worry so much about her. Never did she want to make her friends worry. Still, it was best to show up injured than to not show up at all.
'Step... Okay, right hoof Twilight.' She thought instructions on how to walk to herself. It was the only thing that kept her going, since almost everything else brought her back to the fact that she was in this predicament.
'Keep moving. Spike must be worried sick...' A faint image her small dragon friend appeared by her side. Strangely, even though she knew it was a hallucination, she felt that he was really there. Tears began to once more well up in her eyes as she heard him talking. It was faint, and sounded as if it was being said through a long tunnel.
"Twilight, please wake up! It's been two days now... Everypony is worried... They... The voice trailed off, along with the image of the small dragon by her side. What had he meant by wake up? Was this all just a bad dream? He said it had been a day... What happened to her?
She stopped walking and instead focused all of her remaining energy into remembering the moments from before she got here. 'Spike went downstairs... Then I... I... She put her right hoof to the side of her head and tried forcing the memory forward. But she couldn't remember it, no matter how hard she tried.
Not seeing any hope of remembering what happened to get her here, she focused once more on walking in the direction she had been heading. Each step she took, it seemed the rain grew heavier and heavier. What was once a relaxing, cooling drizzle of rain, was now a downpour that pelted against her as she took a step. It was almost as if it didn't want her making any progress. Of course, she knew that was completely ridiculous.
'Alright Twilight... You're making progress. Keep going... Everything will be fine.' The wound on her head started to throb more, and despite the cold refreshing rain, started to heat up again. The adrenaline to keep going was keeping most of the pain back, but it was still enough to make her lose all focus and wish she could just lay down and give up.
She stopped dead in her tracks as the land around her began to change. A low pitched, slow humming could be heard around, which sounded so familiar to her. The hard black marble ground slowly began to turn to dirt, complete with dead grass on it. The sky slowly formed into that of a night sky, complete with a full moon that casts a cool light over the unicorn. but with each good thing, comes a bad. Along with the grass came thorn bushes all around her, their thorns like fangs of a hungry beast of the woods waiting to bite into her flesh.
'Am I going crazy?' She wipes her hoof across the grass to see if it is indeed real. The soft texture of the grass fills her hoof with coolness, as the grass is as cold as the rain before. Now that she thought of it, everything around her was cool. Never cold, but that cool that is expected on a autumn night. The kind made a pony feel inner peace...
A cool breeze blows through Twilight's still wet mane, causing her to shiver lightly. But the cold wasn't on her mind. It was the fact that she was now in semi-familiar territory, which meant ponies had to live nearby. With a sigh and tears of happiness, she began running in a random direction. Each time her hoof hit the ground, it sent a shocking pain through Twilight's head. She assumed that she probably had a major concussion, but it didn't worry her.
She would soon be with her friends, this she hoped.
She skidded to a stop as she came over a hill. Below it is a field of thorn bushes, but at the end a small cabin. From where she was, it seemed that going around the field was highly impossible. She knew she had to go through it, but could her body handle any more blood loss? She began to feel dizzy at the thought of losing another drop, let alone opening a new wound on her body.
Knowing that the shed may be her only chance, she slid down the side of the hill to the front of the thorn bush field. 'Okay Twilight, you can do this... Do I rush through and get it over fast, or do I slowly move through and risk more pain, but less serious wounds?' The sound of wind rushing through her head, followed by a uncontrollable sense of dizziness gave her the answer. If she didn't hurry, she would pass out and not wake back up.
Taking a deep breath, then releasing it into the cool night air, she prepared to run. As she started running, she thought that maybe her body would be numb enough to ignore the pain. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Each move of a muscle brought another intense pain in various parts of her body. She could feel the warm blood trickling from her cold body.
'Keep moving...' She continued running through the field despite her bodies' protest to stop.
Searing pain took over her entire body.
'Almost there...' Tears began to well in her eyes, flowing quickly out from the unbearable pain.
Coldness started taking over her body.
'Too much blood loss... Not... Going to... Make it.' Despite her brain giving up, her body continued through the field. She could now see the shed, less than twenty feet away.
Her vision began to darken.
'Goodbye Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow, Pinkie, Fluttershy... Spike...' The struggle to remember the name of the disembodied voice from earlier kept her focused on something else. It was somepony very close to her, yet she couldn't even remember what her name was, what she looked like...
Her hooves gave out from under her.
Landing violently on the ground, rolling a multitude of times before stopping, she looked up to the night sky. Her vision was now no more than a very small amount of vision in the very center, surrounded by a border of black around that slowly closed in on what little she could still see. Looking to the left, she saw the shack, only five feet away. She had managed to roll exactly out of the thorn bush field.
'So close...' Her eyes began to burn from the tears falling from them. Each drop landed on a different cut on her body, causing even more intense pain than there already was. She was about to give up and just close her eyes as she heard another voice from somewhere in her mind.
"She's made a turn for the worse... She might not make it through the night." The sounds of crying immediately filled the silence of the night. "It's best you say your goodbyes now. I'll leave you with her." The voices slowly began to fade away like the stars in the sky, but she managed to make out one last thing.
"Twilight... No..." She jerked slightly as she felt something climb onto her chest. When she looked down, she saw nothing, but felt it as if something were hugging her. "Please... Please don't go." The sounds of sobbing slowly faded into the night; the ghostly figure hugging her slowly fading away. She knew immediately it was Spike... She couldn't give up... She had to be strong for Spike, and indeed all her friends. Even the disembodied voice whose name she couldn't remember.
Using her final reserves of energy, she stood and began limping very slowly towards the small cabin. Her body screamed in agony for the unicorn to stop and allow it to rest; her insides screamed for a break, as she feared they may start shutting down. Her heart raced to provide blood to the body, but wasn't able to do its job correctly due to all the blood loss.
Her vision slowly darkened more and more as she neared the cabin. After what seemed like an eternity of pain and wanting to die, she finally reached the door and slowly slid it open. Inside was a pretty much bare cabin with a bed, table with a candle on it, and a rug on the floor. Hope filled her as she noticed a emergency medical kit lying on the table, next to the candle.
She carefully limped to it and opened it. Inside was just what she needed to fix herself up. Disinfectant, bandages, etc. There was even a small mirror to examine herself with. She wished she could use her magic to levitate the supplies and mirror, but she feared that any more exertion would cause her to pass out. She examined her body slowly with the mirror, having sat it on the table with her mouth.
It wasn't as bad as she had expected, but it was pretty bad. The gash on her forehead had somehow originated at her horn and ripped from there across the entire width of her forehead. She struggled to remember what she would have done to cause such an injury, but still drew up a blank. The gash was caked in dirt from landing outside, which meant it would require a good cleaning. She limped over to the sink and carefully cleaned the wound of the dirt. The dirt had clotted the blood flow though, so the blood immediately started flowing again as soon as she removed all the dirt.
Quickly, she disinfected the wound and dressed it in multiple layers of bandaging. Knowing that her worst injury was taken care of, she lazily turned back towards the mirror and began to examine the rest of her body. She felt a little sadness when she saw the state she was in... Her once lavender coat was now a mix of matted blood mixed with dirt and cuts. Her legs weren't as bad as she imagined, and would stop bleeding soon. But to be safe, she slowly but surely applied bandaging to the more major wounds and disinfected every wound on her body. The pain was excruciating, but she did it because if she didn't, the infection would cause a much bigger problem.
It took her about twenty minutes, and the whole time she was on the verge of passing out. as she applied the last bandage, she looked at herself in the mirror. Blood was caked all over he face, her eyes had black bags under them. Her eyes themselves were red and puffy.
"I could really use a bath..." Knowing she probably wouldn't be so lucky as to get one, she walked over to the bed. As she laid down in it, she couldn't help but wonder who this cabin belonged to. Perhaps some pony who just wanted privacy. She hoped that they would understand her predicament and reminded herself to pay the stranger when she gained access to her bits.
As she began to drift off to sleep, she felt the warm bed beneath her turn to hard stone. A quick opening of her eye revealed her to be in the same void she had been in previously. But strangely, her bandages were still on. She wanted so badly to panic, but was far too tired. As she fell asleep, she never knew that her friends were staring at her in the hospital room, knowing that she probably didn't have much more time left. But as she drifted into her dream, she felt the warmness of another ponies' muzzle brushing against hers. She longed so much to see her friends again, and wondered if they would ever find her.