//------------------------------//
// Six 
// Story: Loop 
// by Aquaman 
//------------------------------//

        “Hmm. I remember when I tried that,” the stallion said, watching with noted interest as Sparks reached out for the empty space in front of him with tears beading in his eyes. “Never did learn her name. Guess that’s one more to add to the party here.”

        “It’s you...” Sparks whispered. He looked up at the stallion and channeled every ounce of his fury and pain and shame and fear into the glare he leveled at him. “It’s you! This is your fault! You’re the one who dragged me into this, and I want out! You hear me?”

The stallion snickered, and the edges of Sparks’s vision went red. “But of course it’s me, Doctor Sparks,” he said. “And it’s you... they’re all yours.”

Sparks jumped to his feet, and before he could close the distance between them the stallion leapt forward and did it for him. “What do you think this is?” he hissed, so close Sparks could feel flecks of spittle splattering against his cheek. “Dream? Nightmare? Bad luck? Destiny? Ghosts, spirits, real, not real, tell me Doctor Sparks do you think it really even matters?”

        Sparks stared him down, willing himself not to lash out, ordering himself to keep listening on the off-chance that the stallion might finally tell him what was going on. “Emotions are a powerful thing, Doctor Sparks,” the stallion said. “They define you. They show who you really are. Anger drives you, sadness frightens you, happiness inspires you, and guilt...”

        The stallion’s nose touched against Sparks, and the contact burned like fire. Sparks jerked back, and the stallion grinned. “Guilt haunts you,” he said. “And now, finally, with just a little itty-bitty nudge from this place, it’s broken you. Broken us. Broken we.”

        With a mad yell, Sparks shoved the stallion through the door and pursued him as he went flying back into the hallway. He groped around with his magic and came up with an empty syringe from a lopsided cart nearby, which he held in front of the stallion’s neck and pressed up against his jugular.

“Let me out,” he said, his voice low and rasping and barely even his anymore. “Let me out or I swear on the stars I will kill you.”

The stallion’s eyebrows shot up, but instead of laughing, instead of begging for his life, the look that flashed through his eyes almost looked sad. “But Doctor Sparks, don’t you see?” he said. “There’s only one way out of the loop. There always has been.” 

The stallion glanced down at the syringe, then locked eyes with Sparks and leaned forward. The needle of the syringe pricked into his neck, and as the stopper slid out and blood began to fill the chamber inside, the corner of his mouth twitched.

“And there always will.”

Sparks screamed, lunged forward, and shoved the needle straight through to the stallion’s spine. The stallion’s head lolled forward and the needed snapped off inside his artery, so Sparks resorted to his hooves, punching and bucking at whatever was in reach until the stallion’s crazed giggle died away and his smile was as hollow as the look in his eyes. When it was done, Sparks stood over him, face contorted, scrubs dripping with blood, squeezing his eyes shut and spitting and cursing and doing everything he could to ignore the fact that the hallway was still empty and the lights were still off and he was still alone here and he hadn’t escaped. 

He looked up, and his eyes fogged up and seared with pain. When they cleared again he found himself surrounded by mangled bodies, by gaping holes and sagging limbs and blood congealed black in the dim corridor light. The monsters—ghosts—Guilt haunts you, he’d said—were back. Every single one of them stood behind him, and instead of approaching they just stared at him with sightless eyes, opened voiceless mouths and reached out with hooves covered in bandages and bruises and skin that time had blistered black. He looked back at them, his heart clammy, his skin prickling with every pulse. He couldn’t escape them now. He couldn’t ignore them now. He couldn’t forget them now.

He could remember now. 

His head ached with every detail, every step of the procedures, every name and face and file and exact time of death noted by the assistant who wouldn’t look up and couldn’t speak to him because he couldn’t speak to them because they had trusted him and he had made them promises and his heart sank lower every time, because he remembered paperwork conferences proper procedures next-of-kin anger hate betrayal misery tears dripping onto his scrubs because they he was their only option because the blood was still on his sleeves and body bags wouldn’t let the liquid soak through because that was procedure that was surgery that was life and death and space and time and he couldn’t see it anymore and he couldn’t hear it anymore, because he couldn’t bear the awful truth of it one more second because he remembers he could remember he was remembering right now.

        Sparks’ eyes slid left, and he saw the stallion with the bad heart first.

Oak Knoll. 37. CPA, casual golfer, family man. Coronary bypass surgery. Undiagnosed anesthetic allergy. His wife left a bouquet of flowers to wilt in the waiting room.

        Next to him the pegasus, leg bowed, head tilted over too far.

        Cloudburst. 23. Canterlot weather team. Took a joyride after work. Flew too low. She was fast. Trees weren’t. 7% chance of survival. Called off by coltfriend. Found a feather in my scrubs before bed.

        The wretch tangled up in gauze, hidden from the world.

Steel Screw. 31. Celestial Chemicals. Equipment malfunction in an East Quarter facility. Third-degree burns on his face and neck. Closed casket funeral. He’d been saving up for his mother’s birthday present.

        The mare from the shower, blood shining on her chest like a gem-studded necklace.

Magnolia. 25. Black mane, violet eyes. Wished me good morning when I stopped by for rounds. She kept the knife from breakfast. She never told anyone about the foal.

        Four puddles on the ground, quivering, red.

Morning Light. 19. Top student at Canterlot Academy. Tried to combine invisibility and antigravity spells. Both went wrong. Run over in the street. Couldn’t operate on him until the spells wore off. Stayed behind to watch as the red circle on the sheets grew.

        And in the middle, the colt. The one in the fire. The one with skin melted onto bones that snowed ash onto the grimy floor. The one with the messy fringe, the gap-toothed grin, the look in his eyes that greater ponies had conquered the world with. The one he had tried so hard, fought so long, worked so willingly fruitlessly endlessly to forget.

Blueberry.

        Today, so long ago, always, forever. Orphans. Two little kids. Rivals. Best friends. It was cold. December 20th. A candle tipped over, and I was the only one awake. I ran to get the grown-ups. Woke up everybody in the wing. They told me later he went quick. He didn’t. None of them did.

        Every doctor has a reason for why they became one. For most, it’s because of the ponies whose lives they could save. For Sparks, it was for the ones he couldn’t. Should have. Didn’t.

        And now he remembered them. He saw all of their lives flash inside his own, saw them loop from life to death and back again. He was like them now. Alive and dead, caught up in the loop, trapped inside one of his own creation, because no matter how fast you ran in here or out there it was always the same damn track. No matter how many other procedures he did right, he could never escape the ones he hadn’t. They’d haunted him before. They would haunt him here.

        Sparks looked down at the corpse beneath him, and one last emotion floated through his mind: recognition. Now he knew where he’d seen the stallion before. Saw him now. Would see him again. And if Sparks would never escape it... then he wouldn’t either. When the stallion came in again, he would be ready. When the loop reset, he would make sure it kept going.

        After all, he’d said it himself: everything was a loop. Always had been. Always would.