Jack stared at his corpse with a growing sense of worry. A worry that had in fact been growing steadily ever since he’d watched two of the strange ponies cart his concealed cadaver clear to the hospital in a gurney. It was becoming harder and harder to convince himself that this was all a dream. It didn’t seem likely given that he had overseen his own autopsy with rapt attention and what would’ve been a racing heart if he’d been alive for it to beat. Neither did it help that the whole event was a clear sterile memory that he could, at any moment and without any degree of effort, conjure as a perfect thought. Could recall every incision, every line of stale blood that crusted on the skin, every sound of splitting skin in perfect detail and in entirety. A talent he hoped would leave him at some point. Either way, absolute recall of preceding moments tended to mean it was not a dream.
But, he told himself, maybe it was just a very vivid dream. Maybe he was a protagonist in one of those stories that people tell their children where that person vividly imagines their own death, so that they might realize the value of their own life and how much they mean to their loved ones. This, though, didn’t seem likely either. He couldn’t imagine himself a protagonist of any story, let alone one for children. And the altogether other fact that only Sam would miss his absence and Sam wasn’t here to weep over his body.
The one thing he wasn’t worried about, at least, was that he was wrong on some existential level. He had thought that there wasn’t an afterlife, like a lot of other people, but he’d been wrong so many times before that it was easily acceptable that he had been wrong about that too. After all, it was the unknowable frontier, death. And people tended to simply assume the most comfortable or most believable theory, which wasn’t to say that that was a bad thing, just that if the result was ‘you turn into a weird spectral ghost of yourself and stick around after your death’ it wouldn’t really be something you could expect.
Existential and spiritual issues aside it was a decent moment, the doctor had done a rather good job of laying his corpse out and had shown utmost respect and care during the autopsy, despite the foreign biology of the cadaver. The doctor was present in the room now, occasionally checking a watch on one of their front legs as Jack, invisible to the doctor, remained still at his own bedside. Jack was forced to remove his gaze from the corpse more than once as memories of funerals fluttered into his mind, bringing the emotions that precede tears even if he was no longer capable of actually crying.
So intent was his gaze on himself, or the wall directly over himself at least, he failed to register that a new arrival had entered into the room until he felt their physical form consuming the space that he thought of as his. He stepped away hurriedly, drawing his spectral hand out of the strange creature’s form as it sidled into the space he’d been standing in for the past hour. He shivered, but paid the white horse no more mind as he turned back to look at himself. Vaguely, he began to listen the conversation they were starting with the doctor who had seen to the body of the deceased.
“And you are quite sure it has well and truly stopped animating?” Said the new arrival, the voice airy and slightly higher pitched than Jack would’ve expected. Surely a larger form should've caused a lower tone?
“Yes Princess.” Said the doctor simply. “According to Miss Dash’s account of the creature as it fell from the sky and from the information we gathered during the autopsy it appears that, whatever the creature was, it died when it collided with the stones. It’s not the usual fair ma’am but it has a heart all the same, and lungs, and a brain. And none of them are working on any perceptible level.”
“Was there any form of identification or... “ The princess seemed unsure what else to add. “Anything that would tell us who they are?” She settled on eventually.
“Strange you mention it your highness, but there was something we found. Princess Twilight took the original to examine but she did give us a copy to show you if you came by.” The doctor moved to a nearby table and retrieved a wad of faux leather from it. “She says the original was cattle skin, so we were happy to be rid of it, but this one is a clone she made with a spell of some sort, should have all the important details in it.”
“Thank you” the princess responded. She handed it to a smaller horse dressed in a strange facsimile of heavy plate armor. “See that this is handled with care, I’ll investigate it tonight before I rest and return it tomorrow.” She turned back to the corpse, but said nothing more.
Jack remembered 'Twilight Sparkle'. She was smaller than this new arrival but she had the wings and horn like her. Twilight Sparkle had been excited to see his corpse. She'd seemed absolutely ecstatic about his death. Jack did not like Twilight Sparkle.
Eventually, the doctor spoke up. “Princess Celestia, if I may ask.” They said cautiously, waiting for an answer before continuing.
“You may.”
“Well ma’am it’s just that. The papers and documents in that thing.” The doctor said, nodding to the wallet. “They’re in Equestrian, ma’am.”
“And?” Celestia said simply, her tone unidentifiable.
“Well ma’am…” The doctor swallowed. “I just don’t see how it is that that’s possible ma’am.”
“Neither do I.” she mumbled, her words only overheard by Jack due to his proximity, which drew his attention deeper into the conversation that was already consuming his thoughts.
“What was that ma’am? I didn’t catch it.”
“That’s an interesting deduction.” She said, louder and clearly. The doctor seemed certain that this wasn’t what she had said the first time, but didn’t seem to want to call her out on it. “Did it happen to have a name for the creature when you were looking through it?”
“Ah. uhm…” The doctor squinted, trying to remember. “It was something with a ‘J’ I think.” They began. Jack sighed, or went through the motions of it anyway. “Mmmm,” The doctor tapped a hoof to their jaw. “Oh! It was ‘Jack’ your majesty.”
“Strange name.” Celestia mused. Jack looked at her befuddled. She was named Celestia and she thought Jack was a strange name?
“I thought the same your majesty, I’ve got some ponies looking into the origin of the name and any ponies that might share it, but beyond loose ties to cards we’ve had no luck so far.” Jack turned his attention to the doctor, what was wrong with the name ‘Jack’. It was a good name, Jack thought, though he admitted he was probably biased. It certainly wasn’t a strange name though.
Jack could practically hear Sam’s voice in his head as he latched onto this. 'You’re in a weird world where you fell from the sky and died and everyone is ponies but you’re caught up on them thinking Jack is a weird name?' And then Sam would’ve laughed. And it would’ve been a nice sweet laugh and not one of derision and they would both go home laughing with each other...
Jack steeled himself, driving his memories back to the here and now. Celestia kept talking to the doctor, but Jack found he couldn’t really bring himself to care about it. He was dead, after all, what did it matter what they were talking about, he couldn’t really do anything with the information. Turning, Jack made his way to a wall that separated his room from another and placed his hand on the plaster.
Jack thought about the wall. He’d been dead for not very long but he’d already picked up some interesting talents. He knew that his body wouldn’t go through surfaces unless he convinced himself that he could. Jack imagined it in his head, imagined his hand going right through the plaster, and then the rest of him. ‘But not,’ he thought to himself ‘the floor. The floor is solid and I can’t go through it, but I can go through the wall, because the wall is something I can go through but the floor is not.’
This circular reasoning is what eventually let him through into the room beyond while also not dropping him through the foundation of the building. Celestia had continued talking about pointless things with the doctor for a dozen or so minutes before Jack managed it, but when he did he all but tumbled through into the next room.
There he saw a scene not all that different from the previous room. This one, however, didn’t have a doctor, or Celestia, but it did have a body lying motionless on a bed. The body was rather more equine, but that didn’t stop Jack from associating his own demise with the unconscious pony who’s every living moment was being counted down by the subtle beep beeping of the heart rate monitor that was beside the bed.
Jack didn’t know much about the pony, except that she’d been in this room since before he’d died, but not too long before. He knew that so far no other pony had come to visit her aside from the staff and he knew that whatever had almost killed her was something the ponies didn’t like to talk about. Jack didn’t know why he kept coming back to this room, with the overly moody lighting and dying mare. He didn’t know why he would sit in the chairs and listen to the rhythmic beep beeping of her heart rate monitor. He wasn’t sure why he did anything at all, really. But he supposed he had to do something.
Jack watched as the light that the curtains blocked from entering the room grew deeper and dimmer until only starlight was trying to enter. Jack sat, forgetting himself in the silent room. Staff would come and check in on the mare, to change her bedpan, to replace the bag on her I.V., but Jack merely sat, staring up at the ceiling. Forgetting, for a moment, that he was truly dead.
He tapped the chair idly, knowing no one could hear it. But he tapped out a melody anyhow. How did that song go? “I’ll come to guide you through the night, my dearest darling love. I’ll free you from your cage my dear, you beautiful shining dove.” That didn’t sound right. Was it darling dearest maybe? Jack couldn’t remember, and settled into humming the tune while he tried to force the words to his mind.
It wasn’t until an hour later that Jack felt a gaze on him. Startled, he looked at the pony who lay on the bed. Her head had fallen to the side, her eyes were half-lidded as she looked to him. In some fuss that had gone unheard it looked like she’d pulled the I.V. tube taut after kicking the stand that it hung from. But that wasn’t what bothered Jack. It was those eyes. Eyes that seemed to penetrate through the veil of death and Jack felt like his soul was being torn apart in her sight. Standing, if only to do something, he paused again as he saw her eyes following him. Carefully, he approached.
“You need to be careful,” he said as he turned towards the I.V. He gripped it in both hands and thought again. Thought about how he could obviously move a wheeled lightweight I.V. stand. He heard a mumble and looked to the mare who was still staring at him. She looked at the I.V. and slowly, raised a hoof to try and grip it herself. “No!” Jack practically shouted, stopping her hoof mid-movement. Jack breathed, out of habit even if he no longer needed to. “You can hear me?”
Slowly the mare gazed at him and, weakly, she nodded.
“Well…” Jack paused. He could be seen and heard by someone. That was… new. Granted they were almost dead, but it was something. He felt a desire to make sure she recovered. Maybe she could help him if she survived. ‘But what if,’ said a betraying thought ‘when she recovers she won’t be able to see you anymore?’
That didn’t matter though did it? If that was the case than he wasn’t any worse off now than he was before. The mare looked into his eyes and Jack realized he’d stopped himself mid sentence. “Well…” Jack said again, picking up where he left off. “You need to get better. So you rest there, and I’ll move the I.V. closer so you don’t almost knock it out again, alright?”
Jack waited a moment until, eventually, she nodded again. Alright so that was taken care of, now all he needed to do was… put a single pound of force into an object so that it would actually move. Jack closed his eyes, which was mostly useless since he could see through his eyelids anyway, but he focused on the I.V. and thought about how he should be able to move it. He thought about how easy it would be for him to move such a simple thing. He put all of his non-existent weight into it and, after five minutes, he finally managed to move it.
The movement caught the eye of the figure in the bed and together they both watched as it slowly rolled its way back to her bedside. She looked back to Jack, who had fallen to the ground when the I.V. had actually moved. And she nodded, then she closed her eyes once again and Jack waited until she was truly asleep before he stood from the linoleum.
‘Well at least there’s something I can do.’ Jack thought before slowly, hoping not to wake the sleeping mare, returning to his chair and went back to silently staring at the ceiling. His mind was spinning now with thoughts and plans and... something else. Something else that he hadn't been had much of even before he'd come to this strange world. Through the night Jack cared for the small fire of hope that had sparked in his soul.