For some reason, I expect to dramatically burst into tears and pitiful sobbing. Perhaps I watch too many movies. Instead, I just stare at the rainbow-maned pegasus in front of me with trembling lips, and then slowly return my gaze to the wall in front of my bed.
"...Amputated?" I ask in a small voice, filled with fear.
My companions are silent. Rainbow Dash nuzzles my cheek. The doctor begins fiddling with various things over by the counter as I just stare at the wall in shock. I feel like I should be crying, but all I can feel is disbelief. These kinds of things happened to other ponies, not to me. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't.
"W-why?" I eventually croak, looking back over to Rainbow Dash.
She hesitates. "Well, I should really start at the beginning, but..."
"I don't want you two to go over that until tomorrow," finishes the doctor. "I want to give you some more time to try and remember yourself. Memories are best discovered ourselves, hmm?"
"But—" I protest, only for the doctor to cut me off.
"I can tell you how you looked when you were rushed into the ER, if you like. I can explain why we had to amputate your wings to save your life. What I can't do is tell you why you ended up in my emergency room. That is something for you two to discuss tomorrow." He pauses and picks up a clipboard with his magic. "Would you like me to go over your injuries?"
Nervous feelings hold an icy grip around my heart, and I take a deep, shuddering breath to calm my nerves before answering. "...Yes, please."
The unicorn uses his magic to flip through several pages on the clipboard. He frowns, and seems to be reading something. I bite my lip, trying to keep my limbs from quaking. The tension is agonizing.
"When the medics found you, you had suffered serious injuries to almost every portion of your body. You had deep lacerations across your chest, barrel, face, and forelegs. Your right foreleg was dislocated, and you'll be missing a chunk of your left ear for the rest of your life."
I subconsciously flick my bandaged left ear. What on earth happened to me? What could have caused this kind of a crash? Celestia, he hasn't even gotten to my wings, yet.
"A shallow puncture wound narrowly missed your lungs, but it injured your liver. We're hoping that doesn't cause any serious complications later. The muscle on your right hind leg was almost completely severed, but our surgeons were able to save most of it. You'll have to stay off that for a while." The unicorn doctor paused to take a deep breath, and my chest tightened in anticipation. "Your left wing was almost completely torn off. There wasn't much to amputate. Your right wing was there, but the bones were shattered, and the muscles were shredded to ribbons. I know we have fairly advanced healing magic, but... there wasn't anything left to heal. It was just... pieces of muscle hanging off splintered bone. There was nothing we could do. I'm sorry."
I swallow a lump in my throat. I focus on my breathing. In and out, in and out, nice and slowly.
"I'll leave you two alone. Rainbow Dash, visiting hours end at midnight." Rainbow Dash nods to the unicorn as he trots out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
It is silent, save for the quiet beeping of a heart monitor, and my own nervous breathing. I stare straight ahead, trying to calm the whirlwind of thoughts going through my head. My lip trembles, and I quietly sniff. A tear escapes my eye, and dribbles down the fur on my cheek. "Why did this happen to me?" I whisper to no one in particular. Rainbow Dash nuzzles my cheek again, and gently lays a hoof across my chest. It is an odd feeling to have a stranger comforting me, but I am grateful for it all the same, even if something must have happened in those three days I couldn't remember.
We stay like that for a while. I never burst into tears. I simply lay there, quietly sniffing and swallowing the occasional sob. It is the kind of sadness that is so all encompassing that crying doesn't seem to do it justice. Rainbow Dash never says anything. There isn't anything to be said. Nothing could be said. My life has simply ended. It's over. I had toyed with fate one too many times, and now it has taken everything from me. What's the point? I don't cry myself to sleep, but I get pretty close. It's more like, sniffling and making indistinct whines of grief until the world finally falls away.
There were no dreams that night.
i'm loving this so far but the chapters are really short apart from that i love it
Interesting stuff. I love the descriptions of the injuries. (I'm sorry, I'm a bit weird, but I do love gory medical details.)
4992679
I'm doing a thing where I'm trying to cut each chapter off at a specific point.
As a result, I expect the next chapter to be as long as the entire current story.
4992832 yay!
Interesting. I was not expecting much from this when I opened it up, especially given the short chapter lengths (I know, judgmental much?), but it pleasantly surprised me. Take a fav and like, I'm interested where this is going....
Excellent choice changing the perspective. I really hate the second person viewpoint. I think some writers think it makes the bond between the protagonist and the reader stronger, it doesn't. It's clumsy and obvious. In a well written piece the reader always empathizes with the character. So good move there. It makes the story much better. And although I wasn't sure about it at first, the story has intrigued me.
Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllzzzzzz
It's lover boy twilight crushes on, case solved!
4993264
Just because it's purple doesn't mean it's Twilight.
(also the cover image may not be 100% accurate, either)
4993264 The title suggests Trixie.
horrible story
Well done.
4992832 OOOOHHHH PURDY :3
Who's in the bed?! I wanna knoooww!!
I'm curious. Will we ever know who it is? Or will it remain up to our imaginations?
Other than that, I'm really enjoying this!
Interesting. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
4998077
4998039
4996215
4994176
4993264
4993193
4991344
These are all wrong.
You will never guess who it is.
You have until I post the next chapter to try, though.
4998123 ...Pinkiamena Diane Pie?
4998255 I think it's probably male. One of the Wonderbolts?
I've got an idea- it's Rainbow herself. She's just finding it difficult to come to terms with her own accident.
5000108
That's a good idea.
5000312
then why did you misguide us with:
RD having gender identity issues? Or the doctor confusing the patient's gender?
At first I thought it was Twilicorn ("mental checklist"), but that line threw me off. Unless we're running R64...
5000947
5001628
RandomBlank is correct. My mother had a heart attack and was lying on the ground for an unknown period of time before she was given CPR for 40 minutes, then taken to the hospital.
She suffered no brain damage whatsoever, aside from the memory loss I describe here. This is thanks to an experimental modern medical technique that cools the body to a very low temperature while it is transported to the hospital, which in turn prevents brain damage. While my mother was extremely lucky, in this story, his heart stopped for only 10 minutes and he would have immediately been given CPR by the medics, which is very easy to survive. CPR works. If you don't know how to do it, you should go learn how.
I should note that the memory loss I describe here is oddly common in all the heart attack survivors my family has talked to. We're unsure if it's related to the cooling technique or being knocked out in the hospital for several days. I decided to use it here anyway because it's a convenient plot device.
5001656
I wasn't implying that he was right, I was simply pointing out that it was a good idea. Everyone's guesses here are still wrong, and it is a stallion.
However, if I wanted to turn this into something horrible, I could always have it end with Rainbow Dash playing with her dolls in her room, sobbing over the two stubs on her back.
I won't do that though, because the entire point of this story is that it's an inversion of the done-to-death trope of "RAINBOW DASH LOSES HER WINGS OHMAHGERD".
To better the tragedy, I would put it as Rainbow Dash's dad. But, given the title, and her dad only being mentioned once or twice in the show without any tricks involved, I would imagine it would be one of the Wonderbolts. Based on the cover picture (may not be 100% accurate, taken into account), I have a very firm idea of which Wonderbolt it would be, but based on that solid idea, I'm just going to wait for the identity to be revealed.
Sounds like he got friggin' mauled...timberwolves or a bear perhaps? That or he got dumped into a woodchipper/machinery. ;O Could explain why Dash feels guilty; she could somehow be responsible - even if only partially - for whatever put him in this condition. I could see Dash feeling it's entirely her fault though.
IT'S SCOOTALOO!
I think. I'm just spouting this out. I was googling Scootaloo and I saw a picture of her in a hospital bed with Rainbow Dash having a wing over her chest and this story came to mind.
The answer is pretty obvious, they got hit by RD when she was doing a Rainboom. Up close and personal encounter with the lead shockwave, and the aftermath thereof.
Alas, how tragic is fate when we act as its fool?
It's Soarin', isn't it? 10 bits on the table, it's Soarin'.
5455586 I'm betting on Big Mac myself.
5455997 Big mac does not have wings
5455586 if its sorin I am down voting right now. I came for an oc, not the pie eating klutz from the wonder bolts.
I would rather see a DashxSpitfire or DashxDust or, I just realized that there are no cool MALE pegasi. Oh god no wonder we are stuck with Sorin. He is the only one! NOOOOO!
5003780 The Pegasus is a male
Jeeesuz, what happened to this guy?
I really hope it isn't Soarin... no offense to the pie eater, I just don't... just nope.
Nice chapter.
That is something for you two to discuss tomorrow.
-Her crashing into our main character seems more likely. Or otherwise causing his accident by crashing... although "I didn't know" makes it sound like she knew she was going to crash and picked an object she didn't know the main character was in. Shoot, she may have even intentionally sonic rainbombed something... shoot, she could have just pulled him out of some wreckage from an unrelated... no, she would have known he had wings to be careful of in that case... unless they only know eachother from talking while she was rescuing him?
-I also started to wonder in the last chapter or maybe the one before that if she is going to try to donate her wings to him.