AN: well, i have some serious explaining to do, don't i? ok, here it goes. for the entire summer, I've been working at a boy scout camp. this means I have had almost no wifi at all, what little I did have was laundromat wifi that 25 other people were using.. I also lost motivation until a certain friend of mine named lightzero1111 came along, read what I have, and basically kicked my flank into gear. so, I have a chapter for you guys. the wait is finally over. it's here. done. more to come, I am willing to bet my *insert item of value here* on it. now, i'll shut up so you can read the actual chapter.
“Pyrus?”
Words.
“Pyrus!?”
More words. Different voice.
“PYRUS!”
Really loud words. Another voice.
Go away! I’m sleeping!
-----
“PYRUS!” Scootaloo’s lungs burned, and her throat burned with volume as she screamed the name of her newest friend. “WAKE UP!”
“Okay, Scootaloo, okay! We get it, he ain’t gettin’ up,” Applebloom shook her not-so-new friend, ignoring the globs of tree sap hanging from Scootaloo’s fur. “He’s out cold. Which may be a problem.”
“MAY be a problem!? Are you BLIND!?”
Scootaloo continued freaking out at Pyrus, tugging his mane, pushing his side, and doing the general motions that usually cause a pony to wake up. Applebloom, on the other hoof, was occupied with telling Scootaloo that it’s no use to try, and that she should probably just give up. Sweetie bell’s eyes darted between the orange lump at the base of the tree, the loud, orange, sap-covered mess shaking it, and cleared her mind of any thoughts but what she had learned in Rarity’s almost painful emergency lectures. I know. What must. Be done! she thought.
“ALRIGHT” Sweetie’s musical voice was more than capable of overriding the two other fillies, who immediately fell silent. “He just fell through a tree, so he probably bashed around through the branches. Now, he likely has some fractures from the tumble, but he’s obviously unconscious, which was likely caused by massive impact to the scull. We need to move him, exceedingly carefully, to the hospital.”
Scootaloo blinked a few times, trying her hardest to understand what she just heard. After a few seconds, she gave up and went with the part she could understand.
“Well, then, stop being a dictionary and help me move him!”
“Wait, before we do, can we pleeeeeeeease do it?”
“We don’t have time, Sweetie Bell!”
“PLEEEEEEEEASE?”
“fine” the orange pony gave in, and prepared for the cheer.
“CUTIE MARC CRUSADERS PARAMEDICS! YAY!”
-----
lifting.
Floating.
I wonder where I’m going…
-----
“Please don’t drop him.”
“I AIN’T droppin’ him!”
“GIRLS! Stop talking and lift. The sooner we get him there, the better it is for him.”
There was a long pause, as the three fillies struggled to lift the larger colt. Pyrus had a thin body, but he seemed surprisingly heavy.
After a while, Applebloom noticed an oddly familiar feeling…
“DARNIT, I’m getting tree sap in my mane!”
“UUUUGH!” came the double reply from the two fillies.
-----
it’s too loud.
Too many voices.
Too bright.
And still floating…
-----
As the hospital came into view, the Crusaders’ lungs let out a collective sigh, relieved. Scootaloo however, was far from
finished with her tense state. Oh PLEASE be okay… oh please oh please oh please! miserable, she plodded on,
determined to make it all better.
-----
The dull thud of the door reached the ears of Nurse Redheart, who had been doing a check up on a patient for Doc.
Rushing for the door, she did her guessing game that she did on a regular basis: Guess the Guest. I wonder who it will be
this time… probably some poor teen pegasus crash victim or another young unicorn overdoing it on the magic. Poor dears,
they always want to grow up faster…
When she opened the door, the sight that greeted Redheart made her jaw dropped a little before she could quite understand what exactly she was looking at. She had treated many patients across the tabs, from Pinkie Party Fever to broken bones to the occasional rare diseases such as Cutie Pox, and so it didn’t take long for her to recover.
“Ah, girls. What can I do for you today?”
“Miss Redheart, we have a little problem with our friend. Can ya fix him, please?” came Applebloom’s reply.
“Well, come in and I’ll see what I can do.”
As the trio passed by, the nurse couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t anticipate the CMC again…
-----
moving. Less bright now.
Now moving down.
Soft. Warm. Comfortable...
-----
Scootaloo watched helplessly as they put him in the white bed. She watched helplessly as they scrubbed the sap off his fur. She watched helplessly as her friend was poked with a needle for an IV. She watched helplessly as the nurse said there wasn’t anything they could do but wait. And as she watched helpless she decided one thing, and it was one of the clearest decisions she had ever made.
I HATE being helpless!
“H-hey Scootaloo? Sorry, but Rarity wanted me home before dark. I-I’d wait with you but… I have to go.”
“It’s okay, Sweetie Bell. None of us would be here if it weren’t for me anyway…”
“Hey. Don’t beat yourself up. You couldn’t have stopped that rope from breaking, or that tree from hitting him, wherever it hit
him. It isn’t your fault…”
“Yes it is!” Scootaloo couldn’t control her emotion any longer. “If I hadn’t insisted that he try zip-lining, if I hadn’t dragged him up there, we wouldn’t BE here!” Gradually, her voice increased in volume and pitch, and her stance got higher in time with her voice. “If I hadn’t DRAGGED him off of that tree with me, HE WOULDN’T BE KNOCKED OUT IN THE HOSPITAL! He’s here BECAUSE OF ME!” Tears streaming down her face, Scootaloo fell hard onto a bench in the waiting room. All her energy spent, she could only sob into her hooves, and whisper one more phrase: “Because of me.”
Shocked by her friend’s sudden, violent, emotional breakdown, Sweetie Bell stood awkwardly beside her weeping friend. Such emotions were uncommon among Scootaloo, and she wasn’t prepared to deal with them. The only thing she could do was give her a quick hug, say “I’m sorry,” and leave her there, and as she walked out of the hospital, she found herself asking what else she could have done.
-----
As she ran out of tears, Scootaloo looked inward. She closed her eyes, and felt the pain swirling inside her. The pain of guilt, sadness, and loss, rage at herself for letting this happen, and an oppressive feeling of helplessness. These feelings were completely new to her. She had never felt this much for anypony before, not even when her parents died. Then there was just the sadness and loss, but here was so much more. Guilt ravaged her gut, making her physically ill. She sat still for hours, defeat whittling away at her heart until she fell nearly completely numb.
I haven’t even known him for 3 days yet… I just asked him to come with us after school. And now look, I’ve destroyed him. I’m… I’m a monster…
She hardly registered Applebloom’s voice when she declared that she had to get home too. Only when the nurse finally walked out of the examination room with Pyrus did she stir from her meditation. The nurse was pushing a rolling bed, presumably to another room.
“Nurse, where are you taking him?” she managed to croak out.
“I’m only taking him to a recovery room. Only time can help him now, we’ve done what we can.”
“C-can I come?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Thanks…”
She followed the nurse into a small white room, trembling still with emotion. She slowly trudged across said room to the small cushion that was obviously meant for guests. Watching intently at the nurse transporting Pyrus onto the other bed only brought even more tears to her eyes, surprising her; she was convinced she had run out of them hours ago.
Looking away from the nurse, she surveyed the room. Some computer monitors beeped steadily, mesmerizingly, splitting through the silence like a metronome of paralyzing emptiness. Confusing-looking data traced a path across the bottoms of the computer monitors, and she closed her eyes hard to prevent herself from trying to decipher their meaning, as she didn’t want to face the terrifying truth about exactly how much damage she had done. Moving on, she glanced out the glass behind her, and discovered that night had fallen. Stars littered the expanse of sky that she could see, and finally her eyelids started to droop and her trembling changed from emotion to fatigue.
A wave of exhaustion washed over her, and she drooped even more. By this point the nurse had left her alone. Taking one last look at her injured friend, she gave in to the exhaustion of the day. All of her guilt, sadness, and emptiness blended together to form a single, simple, guilty phrase, echoing through her mind. All my fault, All my fault, All my fault.