//------------------------------// // A "Quiet, and Mundane" Town: Part 1 // Story: The Human Spirit // by Aliko //------------------------------// Woozy was all he could feel as he began to wake from his stupor. What happened to him? The last thing he remembered was simply falling asleep. Yet waking up seemed to cause such confusion in him. He couldn't tell why everything felt so... different. His soft bed even seemed to be replaced by something much harder. He could even feel something brushing against his body as he stirred from his slumber. His eyes slowly began to flutter open, only to be met with a brilliant glow that hurt his eyes immediately upon contact. He winced in pain from the sudden overstimulation of his eyeballs, immediately covering them with his forearm to block the light's unforgiving glare, though doing so made him feel the unfamiliar strangeness return once again. His drowsiness slowly subsided as he tried to figure out what this feeling possibly could be. When he opened his eyes fully, he saw something he couldn't have at all expected. Orange took up the majority of his vision. The bright blue sky was behind this unknown orange mass that seemed to have done what he intended his arm to do, seemingly taking the place of his pale arm. "Wha..." He let out a soft whisper in pure astonishment. He was at a loss for words. Never before had the color orange caused him such confusion. Looking closer at it, he saw that it was orange fur, and what he was seeing was definitely his own arm. In his panicked, yet curious state he made a move he would soon regret. He began to lift his other arm towards the fur to touch it, but as soon as his other arm came to view, he froze. His hand was gone. Panic slowly crept through himself as he tried to make sense of it. What? Why? How? Sweat slowly began to form, as he quietly screamed all his questions in his mind as to how this could have happened. He felt nauseous. All thoughts that came to him repeating over, and over again. The world slowly distorting around him as he focused on this one truth. His hand wasn't there... It wasn't there! He felt his heart begin to pound harder than he could ever remember. Beat, after beat, he felt as if his own heart was trying to explode from his chest. Soon his breathing grew erratic and short. Breathing seemed almost impossible as he sunk below the depths of his own mind. Nothing around him seemed to exist except for his missing hand and the suffocating sound of his own heartbeat that drowned out everything else from the world around him. Each thump grew in intensity as his despair grew. As the world spun around him, the faintest amount of sounds penetrated through the deafening thumps. Though the sound went unnoticed as his spiraling vision began to drag him into a world of blackness, and fear, drowning him in a terrible feeling of looming doom. And like the fallen prey of a wolf, he submitted to the all-encompassing dread, and screamed, until everything went silent once more. "Hellooo Ponyville! This is your host of the new Ponyville Broadcast, Vocal Wave here, and to start off we have some news I'm going to cover real quickly before we get back to playing all your favorites. According to what we have here, there seems to be a large influx of ponies being arrested, for a variety of crimes. This is the largest series of crimes Equestria has seen in quite some time, and no pony can quite figure out what is causing all this. On another note, not only has crime gone up, but there have been much more missing ponies as of late. Could the two be related somehow? Who knows? This radio pony sure doesn't. Now that the news is over with, let's head on back to what y'all are here for. The musi-" Twilight turned off the radio on her desk after she heard a knock at the door of her office. "Come in," Twilight said as she looked up from the papers she was currently working on. Assumedly she was looking at some of her students’ work to see how they did. She was rather invested in it for a while before being taken out of it by a knock on her door. The door swung gently open making a barely audible squeak as Starlight Glimmer walked in with what seemed to be a knowing smile. "Still working hard, I see? Did Rainbow Dash dump her papers on you, again?" Twilight nodded in affirmation. "Yup, you know how it is. She always hates it when we need to do anything with paperwork. I keep telling her even a P.E. teacher has to do some paperwork, but she never listens." Twilight was somewhat annoyed by her friend's unwillingness to do that stuff, but relented shortly. She did enjoy this type of work for the most part, and Rainbow Dash probably knew that too. Starlight nodded in agreement before remembering exactly why she had come in the first place. "Oh, that's right! You told me to remind you of your planned tour assignment thirty minutes before the class so you could prepare what's left." Twilight's eyes widened slightly at the reminder, panic slowly beginning to rise. She dropped all of what she was doing and bolted towards the door in a rush, eager to make sure her plans wouldn't fall through and mess up her schedule. She thought that thirty minutes should be enough to prepare for this class trip, but she felt as if extra time would have been more helpful. Maybe next time she would ask to be reminded forty-five minutes before hoof, or maybe an hour. Her thoughts halted when she was about a couple feet out of the door, and she skidded to a halt, remembering the one pony she left behind without a word. Turning her head back towards Starlight Glimmer, she let out a sheepishly awkward laugh. "Haha... uh, thank you, Starlight." "You're welcome," Starlight replied with a nod, smiling. Twilight returned the smile and headed off to perform her more pressing duties, leaving Starlight to return to her own. Twilight in the meantime was already going through everything she had planned through her mind. She would assign everyone in one of her classes to each individually give a tour to one of the new students. She thought of it as a good way to try to form early bonds between the new and current students so as to not have there be a large social gap between the groups. At least that was the plan. This would be the first time she would act on this idea. She had already made a lot of preparations before hoof, and had assigned everyone to their tour partners. She just needed to finish up some last-minute tasks. Twilight opened up the door to the classroom where it would all start and walked up to the front of the large classroom. Stepping towards the board in the front, she grabbed some chalk in her magical grasp to start writing all the information she would need to convey to all the students that would soon arrive. Finishing her work with only thirty seconds left until the scheduled time, she turned away from the board and waited for the students who would come marching right in. She waited just as eagerly as she believed the new students were to begin their classes. Fifteen seconds passed, and nothing. Thirty seconds. Forty-five seconds. Her smile started to falter at this realization as more than a minute passed. Never before had an entire class come in a minute late. Sure there were always those who came in late, but the entire class? Not to mention some students actually preferred to come in early. Two minutes, and still no one came around. Did her idea fail? Did she not give them the proper time? She deliberated on these thoughts trying to come up with a reason why not a single creature had shown up. Perhaps something was keeping them? She felt herself getting anxious at the thought of anything bad happening to her students. Her worries ceased almost immediately after they began when she saw one of her students, Ocellus, come through the door. "Ocellus, you made..." Twilight couldn't finish her sentence after seeing Ocellus' distraught face. Not to mention she seemed to have run here according to her heavy breathing. "Ocellus, are you...?" She was cut off again, but this time by Ocellus rather than herself. "Something... is happening... outside... Hurry!" she said, breathing in between each panicked word. Twilight was taken aback, her worry quickly returning after the short respite. "What? What's happening?" "Somepony's screaming!" Ocellus stuttered out. Twilight's mind immediately turned itself into a state of emergency after hearing that. If she could help it, she would fix this situation before it got worse. She just needed to know just what was actually happening for her to even start to do something. "Where? Show me!" Twilight urged Ocellus to show her where this is all taking place. "This way!" Ocellus responded quickly taking off away from the door, Twilight, following close behind her. Once Ocellus led Twilight outside to the courtyard, she could see immediately just how many others were gathered around. Panicked voices, concerned murmurs, and the scared scream Ocellus had told her about could all be heard clearly from this large gathering. The screaming was why she was here. The loud guttural scream made her heart wretch at the sheer volume as it echoed its primal fear through her mind. What could possibly cause such an immensely painful scream? Her mind could only go to the worst as she took to the sky above to see what, or who, laid ahead. Beyond the large group of onlookers, she could see a lone stallion on his back near the fountain. He was frantic, throwing his limbs around uncontrollably, like a punctured balloon. His face contorted with every brief breath between his frantic screaming. Quickly Twilight flew straight towards the pony as fast as she could, his almost feral screaming burning into her mind as she got closer. It was unbearable, but she had to help him any way she could. |One hour later| Twilight sat in a pristinely white office, which almost gleamed under the bright fluorescent light that hovered overhead. Still and focused, she looked towards the doctor that lay in front of her. The doctor was deep in thought, thinking over what she had just told him before he asked her the next question he wished to ask. "Do you have any idea what may have happened to cause this? For example, did you see him eat anything... unsavory?" the doctor asked, humming in thought between the last two words. Twilight shook her head in response to another one of the doctor's questions. "No, I'm sorry. I don't know." The doctor tapped the pencil he held in his magic against his lips as he thought about the facts. "So all you know is that he was laying on the ground, flailing his limbs around frantically, and screaming?" Twilight nodded. "Yes, I used a calming spell on him to try to help, but that just ended up causing him to go unconscious." The doctor musing to himself in a low hum began to nod to himself as he realized his previous conclusion was the most likely candidate for causing the stallion’s uncontrollable state. "Well, from what you provided me, it seems that our unfortunate friend has suffered a rather severe acute stress reaction, or shock if you would prefer. " Twilight blinked from this news, surprised. "Shock? W-what could have caused him to panic so severely?" "That's what I was hoping to get out of you." He sighed in exasperation. "The testing we did showed nothing physically wrong with him, and his brain scans came out with normal activity. Everything is just fine for him at the moment..." The Doctors face grew dark as he continued with his speech. "But whatever he saw or experienced to cause him to act the way you described, to the point where he would fall unconscious... I couldn't even imagine what it could have been." "Y-Yeah, me too." To say Twilight was confused would be quite the understatement. Somepony who was on her school grounds, screaming in terror of something unknown to everypony involved. It deeply disturbed her, what if it happened again to another pony? She just couldn't stop herself from wondering what it could have been. Again and again, she mulled over it. Each time her thoughts crashed at a dead end with no other direction to go. She needed to find a direction, and there was only one way she could think of to get it. "How is he right now? Is he awake now?" Twilight asked softly. "He's doing fine, and no, he hasn't..." The doctor was cut off as the door to his office opened abruptly. A nurse stood on the other side looking to be in a hurry. "Doctor. The patient is awake," she announced, getting the doctor’s attention immediately. "Speak of the devil," he muttered to himself. He stood up from his chair pushing it quite far away from its initial point of rest. "Thank you for the information, Princess, now I have to go back to tending to the patient." He began to make his way towards the door, only to halt at the doorway when he just barely heard the Princess speak to him. "Come again?" "I would like to speak to him when I can. I'd like to find out what he saw for myself." The doctor seemed almost shocked at the request, but then remembered just where the incident took place and relented. After all, the princess had done much for Equestria as a whole. She would, of course, want to know anything she could that may be a potential danger to others. "Yes, o-of course, princess. When I'm done with what I have to do, you may speak to him." The doctor turned around and began to leave. "You may wait here if you wish. I'll be back." The doctor then took off towards his duties, leaving Twilight to her thoughts. She would sit there waiting for the doctor, each moment becoming more unbearable. What could have caused the stallion to act like that? She hoped she would find out soon. Twilight turned her head towards the click of the door. The doctor came through, looking rather concerned. Only after spotting Twilight did his features change to a more welcoming position, if only ever so slightly. "Oh, Princess! I'm sorry, I forgot you were here." Twilight shook her head. "No, it's fine." She hesitated to ask if the stallion was able to be talked to after seeing the look from the doctor, but in the end, the doctor was already ahead of her and spoke without any prompting. "He should be fine to talk to, at the moment." Twilight caught on to his wording almost immediately, deciding to press for more information on what he meant. "At the moment? Did something happen when he woke up?" Twilight asked. The doctor sighed at this, as he slowly trotted back to his desk grabbing the seat that lay away from him in his magic and bringing it back to himself before sitting. "Well, unfortunately, he had another panic attack after he woke up," he began. "Another one?" Twilight responded in surprise. The doctor nodded. "Yes, almost immediately after I began to try to talk to him; however, it was far less severe then what caused him to come here in the first place. He calmed down after some time but, he wouldn't answer any of my questions. Wouldn't even tell me his name. He seemed..." The doctor paused, twirling his hoof around, trying to think of the right word to describe what he saw. "He seemed scared, or confused. Almost like he didn't understand what was going on around him." Twilight didn't know how to respond. She was astonished, to say the least. Another panic attack so soon after waking up. Was it actually something he’d seen at her school, or was he simply shocked to be at the hospital all of a sudden? The questions began to endlessly flow through her mind once again. The doctor ended up cutting her thoughts short when he decided to speak again. "He's in room one-fifteen. Also, if you’re able to get him to talk, could you forward any answers you get from him to me? It would make my work a lot easier." Twilight blinked out of her thoughts when she heard the request. She had almost missed it entirely but managed to stitch together the bits of information she heard to understand what he meant. "Oh, yes of course." Twilight rose from her seat and turned towards the door, which still hung slightly ajar. As she magically pulled the door open, she heard the doctor thank her, which she responded in kind as she left the office. With a newfound goal, she made her way towards the room of the mysterious stallion in hopes of getting the answers she needed. Twilight walked down the immaculate halls of the hospital, searching for that one numbered door she was looking for. Each door she passed counted downwards towards her goal. One-thirty four, one-thirty three. Each step she took grew louder, and every beat of her heart grew more intense. One-twenty eight. The echoes of her hooves clashing against the floor reverberated through the empty halls stretching through its entire length. One twenty-two. Her mind began to swirl into thoughts of how she would do this. What questions could she get out of this stallion, if he seemingly refused to answer even the doctor? Only the numbers on the doors pierced through her mind’s storm of ideas. One-seventeen. She couldn't explain it, but she began to feel uneasy. The possibility of what could happen in this conversation was endless. Perhaps, something grave would be brought to her attention, or maybe nothing at all, just as it had gone with the doctor. Even it being nothing more than a cruel prank came to her mind. It was the possibility of anything that ate away at her, consuming every last morsel of her thoughts. It was like staring into the darkness of a forest. Was there nothing but foliage, or did a predator lurk within that darkness, waiting for its next feast? Twilight was heading into that forest to find out. One-fifteen. She grabbed the door's handle in her magical grasp, slowly pushing it open as to not surprise the occupant. Immediately she spotted him. He sat there in the bed with light blue blankets covering his hind legs and tail. He was sitting upright in the bed and looking directly out of the window which stood just beside his bed. The look on his face was almost unreadable. Those green eyes of his staring, unblinking, and unmoving... they made Twilight feel unsure of what to think. The way he wistfully gazed out towards the world beyond the glass barrier as the beams of light that seeped through bounced off his orange coat with almost shimmering splendor. Only for the light to be absorbed by the darkness of his raven mane, leaving only a single streak of golden sheen that stretched from the very tip of his hair to just beyond his forehead. From the lack of any horn or wings... he seemed to be a normal earth pony. Despite her uncertain feelings, she still had something she needed to do. "Hello?" Twilight started. She looked for any sign of acknowledgment from the stallion, only to be met with an empty silence. He did not respond, just as he had with the doctor. She tried greeting him again, only to be met with the same. It was like she was just a ghost to this pony. She tried multiple times to greet him, but each attempt always ended the same. Silence. Nothing but an empty look gazing forwards. After each attempt of communication, she unknowingly began to move closer to the pony in front of her. Somehow she needed to get an answer out of him. She wanted him to speak, to tell her how he ended up like this. Then it occurred to her. What she saw was not a blank expression. It was more akin to that of intense focus. She recognized it from the description her friends gave her whenever they found her in deep concentration. Whether it was studying over something she found an interest in, or simply reading something she grew invested in. She remembered some of the ways they got her to snap out of this entranced state and began to approach the stallion's bedside. She reached out her hoof towards him, ever so slowly inching her way towards his shoulder. She once again attempted to greet the stallion, only this time applying a gentle touch to his shoulder. "Hello?" Twilight waited in agonizing anticipation as she kept her hoof on his shoulder. She looked into the stallion's eyes, hoping to see a shift in focus, anything that could denote a hint of response, and there it was. They met eye to eye. Twilight had broken him free of his aimless gaze. She took her hoof away from his shoulder and smiled warmly at him to try and show him she meant no harm. "Hello," she greeted him with a wave. The stallion blinked for seemingly the first time since she had met him. His mouth began to open as he tried to form the correct words. The time Twilight had been looking for had come. If it all went smoothly, she could finally find out what she had wanted to know since the beginning of this whole affair. Then, he spoke his first words in a soft, trembling voice. "H-hello..."