It had been two weeks since she'd last had a solid night of sleep, and it was beginning to show on her face. Rarity was unsure of what was happening anymore to her, but she felt a constant sense of worry. She'd seen doctors, Twilight, and even asked Celestia and Luna for help, only for none to come her way.
Now here she was once again at Twilight's castle, once again she had equipment probing her vital signs as she was being told to relax. "Rarity, we won't be able to get much done unless you can relax."
"Can't sleep," Rarity mumbled as her legs gave an involuntary twitch. She tried to cover it up by rubbing one hoof along her other foreleg. "No, no no no no no no, can't it just can not be done. I can not sleep."
Twilight looked at the paper feed as it came out before glancing at her friend. "And why can't you sleep exactly?" She asked in a tone that unfortunately came across as cold and clinical.
"Because I'll die," Rarity said with all the casualness of explaining that pegasus ponies direct the weather. She then began to sob uncontrollably for several minutes before stopping as suddenly as it started. She then took an extreme interest with a dark corner of the room. "Do you see that?"
"See what?" Twilight asked as she looked at the same corner with mild, unattached interest.
Rarity didn't answer the question, because she had instead actually fallen asleep for one of those rare moments. She snored softly as her rear legs twitched randomly. Twilight did not try to wake her friend or peruse farther in bothering her. Instead she focused entirely on the feed out and took a few notes. No change between being awake or asleep, mild sense of hallucination carries over.
One of the readings began to shake violently as Rarity slumbered. Twilight looked over at it and realized that her friend's heart was racing far too quickly for somepony that's asleep. She turned and saw that all four of Rarity's hooves were twitching, her eyes half lidded, and that she wasn't breathing at all.
Twilight felt panic set in as she rushed over to her friend and began to scan her over with her horn. Rarity's lungs were empty of air, and fighting to get their breath, she followed the line up and saw that in Rarity's throat there was some sort of blockage. Not a foreign object, but her own throat had turned against her and decided to choke instead of stay open.
Using a small spell, Twilight forced the airway to open allowing Rarity to breathe at last, and with one great deep breath of oxygen hitting her brain Rarity shot upright and fully awake. "IN THE CORNER IS A DEMON!" She shouted before falling off the couch in a flump.
Rarity looked up at Twilight as she looked down on her. "Rarity, you know there's no such things as demons..." Rarity passed out before she could register what had happened.
I don't remember sleeping at all, but Twilight says that I had.
Rarity wrote in her diary as she sat in a waiting room at the hospital. Her hair was no longer in those perfect loose curls, but frayed and frizzled. She was now almost constantly wearing her glasses, usually needed only for up close work because everything was blurry lately.
She'd taken a habit of keeping her diary on her person at all times, just in case, and it turns out that she'd been busy with writing in it whether she remembers it or not. "Rarity, no last name, Rarity?" A nurse called from an open doorway. Rarity stood and followed the nurse into a small private room. "So you're back again? Still having trouble sleeping dear?"
"Yes," Rarity said with a nod. "I was hoping for a sleep study, maybe a spell or potion for sleep?"
The nurse gave a sad smile as she stepped aside to let Rarity through the open door. "Well, we'll see what the doctor says shall we?" So it went the usual way that office visits go, the nurse poked, prodded, checked temperature, height, weight, blood pressure, and asked a series of questions. "Any changes in your diet, or exercise routine? You've gained a little."
If looks could kill, the nurse would have died on the spot for the way Rarity looked at her. "Well if you must know, I've been having gaps in my memory lately. Sometimes I find myself eating when I come back to myself."
The nurse nodded and made a note before spitting the pencil out. "Alright, anything else I should let the Doctor know before he comes in?"
"A severe pain in my left flank, it's been making me hobble lately, and I don't feel like walking much like that." Rarity said as she folded her forelegs over each other.
"Alright," the nurse said after making another note. "The doctor will be right with you in just a moment." Rarity gave a silent thanks in the form of a nod, and settled into the silence of the room. She looked at a clock hanging on the wall and watched as the hands silently slid the minutes by, and by.
Rarity continued to wait as the minutes slipped away, before she knew it, an hour had passed. Then two, then three. "Enough's enough," Rarity said as she slammed a hoof onto the tile. "I'm getting to the bottom of this!"
Rarity got up with a click in her back as she hobbled to the door. She opened it and saw that all the lights outside of the room had dimmed. "How odd," Rarity commented as she looked around. "Are we conserving energy?"
A red light was slowly blinking on and off at the nurses station where she'd checked in. She saw that nopony was there to check anypony in. Rarity opened the door and looked into the waiting room and saw everything was cast in a soft blue light, with the red light on a wall flashing on and off slowly, casting weird shadows on the empty chairs.
"Hello? Anypony here?" She called out, only to receive an echo in return. She continued to step out into the hallway of the hospital and was again greeted by the odd red light. She continued down the hall in hopes of finding somepony to tell her what was going on, when she heard the sound of hooves behind her.
"Wait!" Rarity called out as she turned around. There, she saw a filly, was it one of Sweetie Belle's friends? She couldn't tell from here. "What are you doing here..." She struggled for a name before settling on, "Little one?"
The filly opened her mouth, and a black, viscus liquid began to drip out as she gave off a screech. The eyes of the filly shone bright as the fires from a lighthouse. Rarity gave off a gasp as she took off running.
It was hard to run through the halls of the hospital with the slowly blinking red light casting weird shadows everywhere. There was the sound of a door bursting open, and Rarity saw that a great mass of ponies were flooding into the hall now. She took a turn and saw that she was in an operating room.
Rarity's sharp eyes took innovatory of everything in the room that could be useful, and found some equipment on wheels. She quickly slid the equipment to the door and overturned it to block the door. Continuing to search, she found a collection of scalpels and needles for stitching patients up.
She gathered up all these potential weapons up in her magic and aimed them at the door, as she heard the creatures begin to bang hard on the door. She then felt somepony poke her in the shoulder. She screamed and spun around, landing hard on the tile floor.
"Miss Rarity!" The doctor called out in surprise. Rarity looked around the well lit room, not the operating room, but the examination room she'd started in. Rarity looked at the clock and saw that it had only been thirty minutes since she was left alone in this room.
Rarity now noticed that there was, as impossible as it sounds, a box of tissues embedded in the wall. "Did I?" Rarity looked at the doctor as she nodded. "Oh, I'm so terribly sorry. I didn't mean, that is to say-"
The doctor gave a comforting hush to Rarity as she held up a hoof "It's alright dear," her voice had switched so quickly from harsh to comforting that Rarity was feeling a sense of emotional whiplash. "Just breathe, and tell me what brings you here today."
Rarity went over the list of problems she'd been dealing with. From how she'd come in contact with the virus, to how she'd been having heart and breathing problems since, and a severe lack of sleep despite how exhausted she felt. She then brought up that her back and hip has yet to make a full recovery since the incident on the stairs, and that she suspected that it was part of what was keeping her awake.
The doctor for her part was patient and nodded at just the right times, giving Rarity plenty of time to talk out everything that was bothering her. Until finally Rarity came to a pause, she stayed silent. "Well, that is quite the list Miss Rarity," the doctor said with a frown. She took a few notes in her notepad and then looked at Rarity with concern in her eyes. "What I'm most worried about right now, is that you seem to be drifting into sleep randomly."
Rarity looked blankly at the one black tile in the middle of the floor for several more seconds like a broken doll before animation suddenly came back to her body, moving more than any mare normally would as if compensating for how stiff she was moments ago. "Well that's the thing," she said with a twitch, "I don't recognize that I am asleep. I just suddenly am... plunged into some sort of alternate reality, there doesn't seem to be a gap anymore. Do you understand?"
"BJrp, ivhek ni pop." The doctor said with confidence as she took down another note.
"I'm sorry, what was that dear?" Rarity asked as the black tile scuttled away. "I'm afraid that the pudding is burning..." Rarity turned and saw a pony with a saucepan for a face had smoke belching from deep within.
"I SAID" Rarity jerked awake to see the doctor was now looking slightly frustrated. "That without some real sleep soon, you're going to wind up a long term resident at the rate you are going." She then wrote something down on the paper and tore it from the notepad. "I'm giving you a magic inhibitor, for your safety." The doctor said now with a curt, but polite tone.
"As far as a sleeping potion goes," the doctor continued. "According to your records, what we usually give patients has had no effect on you." Rarity began to feel crestfallen, sure that she was doomed. "But," the doctor continued. "Have you gone to see Zecora?"
"Well, no," Rarity said dumbfounded. "Why?"
"Zecora is a very talented mixer of elixirs and potions, she volunteers here fairly regularly. I'd recommend that you see her."
I went to see Zecora, and she had decided that I try a tea based herbal product. There is a plesent odor throughout the house. She told me to try to stay awake until bed time, I think that 8 will be late enough. I've been rather fortunate that I haven't had anypony schedule appointments, but instead have been able to just sell things off the rack.
It's now 7:30, and the smell of the tea is strong, even though I have not yet added it to the water. I just flipped the sign on the door to closed, and cleaned up the shop for the day. Donations for the Equestrian Plague Fund are doing a little better. With these donations, I hope that they can find out more ways to help the victims of the plague, not just for my sake, but for the sake of all.
Rarity paused, the sound of the kettle whistling suddenly cut across the sound of the ticking clock. It was now just around seven forty five, she gave a shrug and sauntered over to the stove and poured the hot water into a teapot to let the brew from Zecora steep.
She then looked over at the table and thought for a moment if she wanted to write some more and shook her head. Instead she opened the fridge and floated over a salad from the Café she stopped by earlier and sat to pick at it while waiting for the brew to be ready.
The flavor of the salad was fine, if not a little bland, so she added just a few shakes of salt to it before continuing. She then looked at the inhibitor ring on the table with a little sadness. It wasn't too different from the kind that is worn by ponies headed to prison, except that it had grooves to make it easy for her to remove with her own hooves.
The clock struck eight, and Rarity poured herself a cup of the tea and sipped lightly. Again, she thought it was a rather bland affair. She sighed, knowing that honey or sugar would make it better, but knew not to add it.
Once finished, she slipped the ring over her horn, then tried to float the dishes to the sink, only to groan as nothing happened. "Of course..." She then grabbed the dishes in her teeth and put them in the sink. She thought about grabbing the journal, and decided to leave it.
A yawn escaped her lips as she walked up the stairs, and weariness took hold. As she ascended the stairs, she felt her hooves stumble slightly. That stuff is strong... Rarity thought to herself as she wandered into her bedroom. The last thing she thought to herself before sleep really, finally took a grip on her was, "I need to get to Manehatten for... and then she fell, finally, into a deep, dark, dreamless sleep.