Hard to write · 5:55pm Mar 30th, 2017
After enduring the warnings, the lecture, the explanation that he had to be careful, Flicker was allowed to see Hennessy. The critical care unit was different than the wing where he and Piper were staying, this place had an eerie quiet that left him feeling unsettled. The lights were kept dim and the wing was dark. He and Piper had to wear padded paper booties on their hooves to keep the sound of their walking muffled.
The nurse leading them stopped at room one hundred and nineteen, then turned to face both Flicker and Piper. In a soft whisper, she said, “Seeing him will be a shock. Try to be brave. He has been selected for healing, but that will take time, what few healers there are, they are very overwhelmed at the moment. He is still critical, but stable enough to wait for a healer.”
“I understand.” Flicker’s voice had changed since the injury to his larynx, and he now sounded like a middle aged stallion that sounded as though he lived on a diet of whiskey and black-paper cigars.
“Brace yourselves,” the said, offering a final warning as she pushed open the door.
Flicker managed to wait for all of two seconds or so, then he slipped past the nurse and went to Hennessy’s bedside. In the bed was an unrecognizable mess of bandages, some of them bloody. Flicker couldn’t see anything of his friend. He could feel his pounding heart creeping up into his throat, and he turned to face the nurse, who now stood beside him, looking sad, her ears drooping.
“He was stabbed so many times and shot with flaming arrows,” the nurse said to Flicker, her voice straining. “Still, he should recover, especially with magical healing. He’s also suffered extensive burns, and while we live in an era of amazing progress, burns are one area that we are woefully inadequate in treating.”
Closing his eyes, Flicker ground his teeth together, and he could feel them chipping, the painful electric tingles made the corners of his jaw ache. He felt a soft touch upon him, the nurse, and she had leaned into him, trying to comfort him. Much to his own surprise, he found himself pressing up against her, and his eyes burned with tears that refused to fall, little soldiers that refused to leave the fortress that was Flicker.
“Flicker, is that you?”
The voice was dry, crackly, like autumn leaves blowing on the wind or kindling beginning to burn in a fire. Flicker felt his ears go stiff, along with his spine, which made the whole back half of his body ignite in flames of nausea inducing agony. Forcing his eyes open, he pulled away from the nurse, fighting to stay upright, and he turned to face his friend and dear companion.
“Flicker… I think I saw that zebra you saw,” Hennessy said in a whisper that sounded like wrinkled sheets of newspaper being rubbed together. “She sang to me… she was nice. She played a banjo with her head-ropes.”
Confused, Flicker stood there, blinking, his heart throbbing in the narrow confines of his now parched throat. He needed a drink, something cool, something to numb the burning throb that threatened to choke him. Piper pressed up against his side, leaning against him, and his legs wobbled as he tried to hold both himself and his friend up.
This chapter has been tough to slug out.
Get those filthy rats for what they did to poor Hennessy!
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Lord Death's Murder Mountain will be made out of rat corpses.
4477345 No if for the only reason the Lord of Murder mountain tends to not leave much left of his enemies
4477345 More like he'll drop the mountain on them. Now some more of that pain he was warned of is hitting home.
You know, I think I'm starting to get why I'm having so much trouble dealing with this. It's because things like this exist in the same 'verse as things like Pebble and Sumac's adorable interactions. It's because the lighthearted, fun interactions between Gosling, Celestia, and Luna will inevitably be interrupted by this terrible tragedy (if it hasn't already, I don't know the timescale). Going back and forth is really making it difficult to accept the good in this Equestria. Sometimes it's like there are just quick little spurts of joy between the next atrocity playing out, and it's really overwhelming.
And I get it, it's supposed to be like real life. At this very second, more atrocities than I can process are occurring. Countless people are enduring needless suffering. And I can't deal with that. I can't deal with how awful everything is sometimes, and I just ignore it and bury myself in my own interests. And sometimes I wonder if that makes me a bad person. Is there anything I could do to help? Would I if I could? Would I be willing to leave my safe environment and ignore my own interests if it meant helping others who desperately needed it? Would I be a bad person if I answered 'no'?
The Weedverse is forcing me to ask these questions about myself. I'm not sure I like what I find. I also don't know if I'm taking it too seriously or not. This is all so confusing and overwhelming.
I'm sorry if this was incoherent. This is what happens when I post when I'm tired.
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Life, all of it, happens.