//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Altered // by Graglithan The Greater //------------------------------// Dr. Home was not having a good day, and that was putting it lightly. About three hours had passed after the princesses, and their friends had left, and in that time her mystery patient had woken up. Usually, this would be a good thing. She could go about the usual procedure of making sure they were alright and talk to them to learn their side of what happened. Only problems there were a few facts. One, this mare used to be something else entirely and was so visibly distressed at the very sight of her limbs, that the patient was beginning to hyperventilate and spout nonsense. Two, Dr. Home was already startled at hearing the heart monitor going off as rapidly as it did, making her already less than approachable demeanor slightly worse alongside the situation and her stress levels. It was the bout of cursing as she tried to rush in and help slow the mare’s heart down to a safe bpm, that she learned three, this mare didn’t speak Equish, or any language she could recognize whatsoever, as she spouted some inane babble that vaguely sounded like sentences. Finding herself with this, she decided to ditch verbal communication for the time being and instead was holding a hoof towards the mare, trying to pull her attention to her and get her to breathe. Pushing and pulling her hoof from her chest and letting out a few breaths, Dr. Home tried to get the mare in her care to look over at her. Purple eyes soon honed in on the doctor, and danced over every detail before the mare slowly started to follow suit with her breaths. Slowly but surely, her heart rate had finally dropped back down. Careful not to startle them, Dr. Home calmly moved over to the monitor and turned it off, before looking to the mare once more. She placed a hoof on the edge of the bed, the mare awkwardly flinching away, before quickly raising her hoof defensively and pointing to the leads that were still attached to her. Slowly, the purple mare clumsily slid herself back to her previous position and watched nervously as Dr. Home removed the sensors. Once that was done, Dr. Home decided to take a quick gamble and see if talking was possible. Yes, her patient had spoken another language, but to be safe, she had to make sure she didn’t speak her’s. “Do you understand me?” The mare’s head turned to look at her before it tilted to the side in confusion. Sighing as she shook her head, Dr. Home turned to leave the room, and paused as she got to the door. Pointing at the mare, she moved her hoof to the floor and gave it a solid tap, before pointing at herself and then the door. Thankfully for her, the mystery patient understood at least that much and nodded. Closing the door behind her, the doctor found her coworker standing at the window looking in. “Well, that was certainly faster than we predicted. I had expected her to be unconscious for at least another day or two.” Dr. Oath’s horn ignited, and a few papers floated out of his pockets. “Regardless, I just finished with the permissions needed to proceed with your insane idea.” The papers were given to Dr. Home, who took them in hoof and attached them to her clipboard. “You had best be careful about all this.” Scoffing a bit, Dr. Home placed her clipboard in a pocket and looked to the door. “That’s great and all, but I was originally planning on looking the devices over before she had woken up. Now that she’s awake, we’ll need to focus our efforts on our Jane Doe here. She seems intelligent enough to realize I wasn’t here to hurt her, but doesn’t speak our language at all.” Dr. Oath’s brow narrowed as he tilted his head slightly. “What makes you say that?” Shaking her head, Dr. Home started to walk away from the room. “I had to calm her down from a panic attack, and I on top of that, she was trying to ask me a lot of things. What they were, I don’t know, but you can try and figure out a way to talk with her if you want. I recommend keeping Princess Twilight out of the room for the foreseeable future. If the sight of her own hooves was enough to make her panic that horribly, I don’t want to think of how bad she’ll be if she saw somepony who looked exactly like her.” “Right.” As he neared the door, Oath looked over. “Might be best to add that into your report as well. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can devise a way to communicate with her in the short term.” With one hoof on the door, he could hear muffled noise from just beyond it. “I’ll let you know if something other than hoof gestures work.” Looking back, Dr. Home was scowling but nodded. As soon as Oath was in the room, she started off towards her lab. “Imbecile.” As soon as the door closed behind the mare, Chris flopped back into the bed and stared at the ceiling. “Okay Chris, situation time. Go over some facts and see if any faults would make this some awful fever dream. One, you’re a horse, and your voice is different. There’s a big one. Two, the other horse that was in here earlier was in a lab coat, tried to talk to you, and but you couldn’t understand a word of it. That’s another. Three said horse was freaking blue, and you’re purple.” He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and sighed. “Okay, this has got to be a dream.” Sitting up slightly, he glanced around the area and frowned. “Wasn’t pain a way to wake from dreams?” Spotting a scalpel on the table nearby, his mind entertained the idea for a moment. He quickly shook his head and shuddered. “No, not even in dreams. Tiny cuts hurt.” Raising one of his arms, he felt his heart pick up its pace some. Licking his lips nervously, Chris eyed the hoof cautiously. “Well.... I guess teeth it is.” Hesitantly, he opened his mouth and slowly moved his arm between his lips. Not wanting to make this last any longer than it had too, he quickly bit down the moment he built up the courage to do so and instantly regretted it. A small cry escaped his lips as he brought the bit limb to his chest. Marks slightly visible under the fur throbbed with each heartbeat. “Okay... not dreaming,” an attempt at a gulp left his throat starting to feel dry, "which is even more terrifying.” Rubbing his bit limb as gently as he could, he took several breaths. Desperate to distract himself, he closed his eyes and let his mind race through what he remembered. “Okay, what was I doing before this happened? Firstly, went to the bank. Need to make note to find out what happened to the lost funds. Second, got hit in head by an inconsiderate jerk throwing something small and metal. Three, thing that hit me e-exploded. Possibly was a flashbang, but that is currently unknown. Four...” His eyes glared at the ceiling intensely as he tried to focus his mind. With a growl, the raised hoof slammed back down onto the bed. “Damn it what happened next!?” Rubbing his face, he grumbled and took a few breaths to try and calm himself. “Okay, uh, let’s focus on colors only. Maybe that’ll get us somewhere. There was, um, purple? I know there was something purple, and it wasn’t me. Maybe it was another horse thing? Then comes the metallic rainbow, which was our little bomb. There was also a lot of blue,” glancing around at the room, he sighed, “which would be explained by the current locale. Did, did it teleport me?” Scoffing a bit to himself, he shook his head. “No, teleporting is impossible outside of theoretical science and fiction. Something else had to have happened.” Leaning to the wall, he tapped his hoof against the surface. “Wait a second. Is this, crystal?” He slid the hoof along the wall and frowned. “Seamless too? B-But that kind of architecture would be insanely expensive, and p-practically impossible!” Looking at his body again, a small chuckle escaped his lips. “Impossible. So is t-turning into a horse, yet here I am. Just about e-everything, I’ve seen so far is impossible.” About then he noticed that his blankets had slid down further off of his body. He was about to look at his body in full if only to see the extent of the damage his mind would have to adjust to when the door opened. Glancing over, he saw a different horse in lab coat this time. The blue one with the red and pink mane, which still registered in the realms of inconceivable, had been replaced with a much more logically colored brown one, with a lighter brown hair that kinda reminded him of caramel candy. The trailing thought at least distracted him somewhat, but he noticed that the new arrival’s jaw was squarer than the last one. Something about how it looked was telling him this was a male horse. No, Unicorn. That was undoubtedly a horn coming out of its head. What was the term again? Stallion? Now I wish I’d listened to Kim more. This is her obsession, not mine. Clearing his throat, the stallion tried to talk to Chris for a moment, only getting a blank stare in return. With a slight deadpan, Chris instinctively facepalmed, which in retrospect, hurts more with hooves. “Did the other horse not let this one know I can’t understand them?” Sighing, Chris slumped back into the bed. “Stupid horse doctor things. Can’t even listen to their colleagues.” At that moment, some memories fluttered back to his forethought and his new ears fell a bit. ‘Like I was much better...’ A quick mental slap to the face, and Chris started looking around the room. ‘No. This is not the time for a pity party. This situation calls for an intelligent and elaborate method of communication.’ The horse in the room kept watching him even as he searched around. ‘Damn it why can’t I find a piece of paper!?’ For a second, his mind jumped back to the pantomiming the previous doctor horse had done. There was one problem with that plan though. “How the hell do I mime for paper?”