I woke up slowly from the dream.
As I started to form pictures and images of what was around me, my body started to boot up.
I felt myself breathing with ease. I tried to swallow and a spasm of pain shot through my body. I cracked an eye open as my brain started revealing sights and sounds to me.
"-at happened?" An unfamiliar voice sounded.
There were intensely bright lights above me. They appeared to be moving. I felt something soft, yet firm against my right side. Was I in my bed?
"There was a crash during the Derby. She got stuck in her cart after it got destroyed!" A raspy voice responded. "I flew her here as quickly as I could!"
That sounds like Rainbow Dash.
Am I hanging out with Rainbow Dash? Haha, Scootaloo is gonna be so jealous.
I vaguely felt the sensation of something covering my muzzle, and felt what I thought was a leech wriggling around on my left foreleg. Did I fall in the lake?
"What's her blood type? She's lost a lot of blood!" The unfamiliar voice called out again.
"I uh… I don't know!" Rainbow Dash responded. She sounded panicked.
I felt like I was moving, and quickly. I also felt the thing I was laying against jostle, and felt a stronger spasm of pain spread through my stomach like wildfire. I let out an audible gasp.
"She's waking up!" The first voice said again. "Nurse Coldheart, I need you to give her two milligrams of Ketamine, STAT!"
I heard somepony push a button, and some sort of electrical beep, and a warm, smooth feeling spread throughout my body. I tried to sigh in comfort, but found I was unable to.
With the calming feeling spreading throughout my torso and forelegs, I felt my eyelids flutter close on their own accord. More relaxed than I had ever been, I felt myself falling asleep again.
I opened my eyes.
Or… were they already open?
Where was I?
The room I was in was blindingly white. There were some light blue curtains, and a picture of a large whale swimming underwater on the wall opposing me. Off to the left was a door, with a white pony with pink hair and a pink plus sign as a cutie mark.
What's Rarity doing in my room?
Wait… this isn't my room. And Rarity doesn't have pink hair.
Where am I?
"Good morning Applebloom," the pony spoke. I felt like I had heard her voice recently. "My name is Nurse Redheart. What do you remember?"
That was a good question. What did I remember?
"I… uh," I cleared my throat, pausing to think. "I was doin' the cart race. I tucked my seatbelt under the seat since Applejack didn't install any of them… buckle things. We were goin' real slow, then Scootaloo's cart lost a wheel and we all crashed. Then I… got real confused, everything got real bright, I fell asleep, and here I am."
An unreadable expression fixed itself to Redheart's face.
"Your sister didn't add any buckles?" Redheart asked.
"Uh, no ma'am. She said we weren't going fast enough to need one, and the seatbelts were jus' a dumb rule they had to add," I replied.
Redheart looked like she had just sucked on a lemon. She let out a long sigh and relaxed her face.
“Applebloom, dear, you got very injured in the crash. Do you remember anything about that?”
An image of a piece of wood sticking out of my chest flashed before my eyes. My forelegs shot down to my chest instantly, feeling for the injury. As soon as my forelegs hit bandaged flesh, a spasm of pain shot through me.
“Agh!” I shouted.
I felt a hoof gently push my hooves away from my stomach.
“Please don’t aggravate the injury,” Redheart pleaded. She chewed on her lip and hesitated before speaking again. “Dear, you had a complete separation between your T18 and L1 vertebrae, I’m afraid. You spent the last sixteen hours in surgery, and we had to fuse your spine back together.”
I blinked hard. That sounded bad.
“What does that mean?”
Redheart placed a hoof on my shoulder.
“Honey, I just want you to realize the fact that you survived is amazing. You should be very thankful you didn’t get more injured with what happened. Be that as it may… all the nerves below the T18 vertebrae won’t work anymore… I’m afraid you may never walk again.”
I felt my heart pounding in my ears.
“What?” My voice cracked. I was sure I misheard her. I had to have. This sort of thing could never happen to me.
“Your body relies on nerves to send messages to your muscles.” Redheart sighed. “But with the injury you had, those nerves aren’t working anymore. So… I’m afraid you won’t be able to control anything below the injury.”
“Wha- For how long?!” I sputtered as my world began crashing down on me. I felt my eyes burn as I struggled to fight back tears.
“I’m sorry Applebloom, but in ninety-five percent of the cases where a pony gets an injury like this… they never walk again.”
“No.” I whispered, hot tears silently making their way down my face. “N-no.”
Redheart fell silent.
“H-how did this happen?” I sobbed. “I mean… Applejack was walking when she was tryin’ to get me outta the cart!”
Redheart looked away as she slowly retracted her hoof.
“My best guess is that Applejack got thrown during the crash, but from what Rainbow Dash said… You were halfway through the front of the cart, and right in the middle. While your seat was mostly unharmed… I’m afraid your belt didn’t hold you back, and the crash flung you right in the way of the collapsing back of the cart. If there were no buckles, that would probably be why.”
Suddenly the room got cold.
“So that means… Applejack…” I breathed. “No. Celestia no.”
Was this… her fault? If the seat I was in was mostly unharmed, but the seatbelt not holding me back did this… then…
Applejack’s the reason I’m this way?
“We’ll have to keep you here for the next few weeks,” Redheart continued. “We'll need to medicate you, and give you occupational therapy and bowel and bladder training. We also need to set you up with a wheelchair so you can get around.”
“Wait, wha? What do y’all mean, occupational therapy an’ bladder training?”
I didn’t know what occupational therapy was, or what bowels were, but that sounded bad.
“Well, occupational therapy is teaching you how to do things differently now with your… unique condition. And bladder training because… well, your brain can’t send messages down there now, so…” Redheart returned to staring at the wall, rubbing one foreleg against another as her ears drooped. “Have you ever heard of a catheter?”