I woke up screaming. Sitting bolt upright, I tried jumping into the air, and getting away, but my wings were tied to my sides. I was in a room, with wooden walls painted a comforting green color. There was a window, that showed Ponyville of in the distance, and allowed bright sunny light to filter in. As I calmed down, I noticed a few more things scattered around the room.
There was a large, soft bed with blue blankets behind me. It was all messed up from when I jumped out of it in a panic. There were a few machines scattered about. Some just sat there, while others lit up in strange colors, and made weird noises. There was one in particular that was right next to the bed that had a green line on it, and was making a constant high pitched tone. There were a few things dangling off of it, with what looked like suction cups attached.
That was all I had time to notice, before a swarm of ponies in strange outfits came charging in. A few had these strange white coats on. The coats had huge pockets on them, and almost completely covered the pony's forehooves. The rest of them were wearing clothes that were a strange shade of green. Noticing me standing there, they stopped, before one of them made a shooing motion to the rest.
As the filtered out, the grey pony trotted over to me, and sat down saying, "Hi. I'm Doctor Pierce. How are you feeling?"
I flopped down myself, and replied, "I feel fine...... I'm just a bit confused. What happened?"
The doctor smiled, and gently pushed me towards the bed, saying, "Don't worry. Lots of patients that get knocked out are confused when they first get here. I'll try to fill in the blank parts, if you don't mind."
I jumped up onto the bed, and got settled. Once I was under the soft blue blanket, I looked back at the doctor, and said, "Please."
"What do you remember last?"
"Well......" I said, scrunching my face up in thought, "I remember that we were in the woods...... A timberwolf tried to eat us.... Some guard ponies showed up.... and then I got hit in the face....." Pausing, I continued, "And then.... nothing."
Smiling reassuringly, the doctor said, "Well, that's not too bad then. Lets see..... after you distracted the timber wolf, your friends came galloping into town as fast as their little hooves could carry them, screaming to anypony that would listen about how there was a monster in the forest. A group of guardsponies quickly got together, and set out to the forest. They said you were doing pretty good til you got distracted. It didn't take them long to subdue the monster, and luckily, you weren't hurt too badly." The grey pony smiled, and tapped the side of his skull, "Just took a bump to the noggin, and some pretty deep scratches on your wings from the fall. You'll be fine."
I breathed out a sigh of relief. Noticing, the doctor smiled, then said calmly, "Well, If you're feeling good enough, I could send word out to your parents...... they're really worried about you."
I gasped, and said, "Oh horsefeathers!" Blushing at my own language, I explained, "I.... kinda never told them where I was going....."
The grey doctor chuckled at that. "Don't worry, they won't kill you...... or if they try, at least you're in a hospital where we can put you back together."
Wincing, I merely nodded, and hid under the covers partially. The doctor left the room with a large grin plastered to his face, and called for a nurse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After being grilled over by my parents, we'd ended up having a touching moment. It was the usual. Hugging, kissing crying, the work. Blech.
It got better though, because at about the same time they left, my friends from school showed up. Orion practically slapped me upside the head for staying behind like an idiot. I was starting to get mad. All I'd wanted was to save that pony. Khaki Slack, noticing the mood, quickly changed topics. "So..." He started, "One good thing came out of all of this." Orion and I both stared at him, until he continued, "You got your cutie mark didn't you?"
I tilted my head, and looked at him like he was crazy. "You sure you weren't the one who got hit on the head?" I asked skeptically. He responded by pulling the covers off of me, and saying excitedly, "Look look!"
Sure enough, there it was. On my once bare green flank was my cutie mark. It was a pair of swords, crossed over a white shield, that had a light blue stripe running from the upper left of the shield, to the lower right.
My mind went blank, as conflicting emotions arose. I was excited for my cutie mark, yes, but at the same time I was kinda disappointed. Since I got my cutie mark, my special talent wasn't a mystery anymore. I could't daydream about how I was destined to be a great pilot, or a writer. Still, it was my talent to guard people. That's awesome. As these conflicting thoughts spiraled around my head ll I could think to say, was, "How did you know before I did?"
Khaki Slack grinned from ear to ear, and said, "I saw it when the guards ponies picked you up."
After a moment of silence we all began laughing hysterically. I don't know why, but it was just so darn funny. We ended up just joking around for a couple of hours, until visiting hours were over. Waving goodbye, Khaki and Orion promised to visit tomorrow.
That night I fell asleep quickly. In my dream, I was flying over the Everfree forest. It was as perfect a day as could be imagined. The sun was brightly shining warmth across Ponyville, and there were only a few white puffy clouds in the sky. Not enough to block out the sun, but there were enough clouds to make shady places if ponies got too warm. The Forest didn't even seem as scary as normal, it's trees were all bright shades of green, as opposed to the dark, shadowy green they were normally.
All in all, I was perfectly content and happy. I flew over, and grabbed a chunk of cloud. If you've never touched a cloud before, it's one of the most unique feelings ever. Since this was a white puffy cloud, it was soft, and cool, unlike dark grey storm clouds, which are hard and cold. Anyway, I took my chunk of cloud, and began to fashion a floating couch.
After a few moments of kicking and molding, I had a soft fluffy couch to relax on. Soaring over, I flopped myself onto the cloud with an audible thump. I had just gotten settled, when I heard a cry for help. I perked up, and scanned the trees below me quickly. I couldn't tell where It was coming from from here, so I jumped off of my floating couch, and began to soar back and forth over the forest, listening with all my might. Suddenly, there it was again. Right below me this time. I shouted, "Hold on!", and dived at top speed.
Curbing my speed just before I hit the upper branches of the Everfree forest's massive trees, I lowered myself down to the forest floor slowly. I landed with a crunch in a pile of discarded leaves, turned all different shades of color from time. Glancing around nervously, I saw..... nothing. Nopony was in sight, and no monsters either. Nervously, I checked out my surroundings. The trees were still brightly colored, and a light, gentle breeze was making the upper branches sway softly. Nearby, to my left, a hill rose up out of the ground sharply. Examining the hill more closely, I noticed that there was a cave on the side.
No sooner did I notice the cave, when echoing out of it, I heard a filly screaming "Help me!"
I dashed forward at top speed towards the cave's dark, shadowy maw. Upon entering, the first thing I noticed, was that the cave wasn't quite as dark on the inside as the outside indicated. There was some kind of luminous moss lining the walls farther in. It almost resembled what I would imagine a bat pony cave would look like. The second thing that I noticed, is that there was some sort of puddles liquid on the ground. It was darker than mud, and reddish.
I creeped over slowly, and put at tip of my hoof into it. Slowly, I brought it up to my face to examine it closer.
It was blood.
Screaming, I backpedaled out of the cave, and began to run for my life. The trees weren't bright anymore. In fact, they had resumed their dark shadowy colors, but now they all had faces. The trees began to laugh as I sprinted away as fast as my hooves could carry me. I should have paid more attention to where I was going, because I ended up tripping over a bush, and falling into a pile of leaves with a loud crunch.
I sat up shakily, and shook leaves off my head. Standing up, I noticed that something seemed odd about the pile of leaves. I scraped off the top layer, and closely examined what lay underneath. The leaves had been hiding entire skeletons of poor ponies.
For the hundredth time that night, I screamed and ran away. The forest melted, and instead was replaced by a barren red landscape. I began to hear strange noises, almost like some sort of demons were messily eating meat.... probably pony meat. The ground became a dark crimson. As I ran, I looked behind me, and noticed that a wall of shadow seemed to be chasing me. I tried to run faster, but I was just so tired. I could barely move my legs.
The shadow slowly closed. I grew closer, and closer, and closer...... and then nothing. The shadow caught me. I couldn't see, or hear anything.
"....... You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" a creepy, yet familiar voice said.
"Wh-who's there?" I asked, terrified out of my mind.
Ignoring me, the voice continued, "It didn't have to end this way...."
"What's going on?" I asked, feeling my fear grow.
"Well, Silvermane?" The voice asked, barely containing a laugh.
"P-Pinkie?" I asked, terrified, "Is that you?"
"Weeeeeeelll doooooonnee" The voice said.
Then, after a brief moment of silence, She appeared in front of me, shrieking like some sort of possessed demon. I threw myself down onto the ground, and covered my head with my forehooves. I tensed up, waiting for the strike to land...... and then nothing. Nothing at all.
I peeked up over my hooves, and what I saw nearly shocked me as much as what I was suspecting. I somehow was transported into surgarcube corner... into the middle of a party no less. Pinkie was practically giggling herself into a coma not too far away. Standing, up, I tried to speak but nothing came out.... well nothing that made any sense anyway. After a minute or so had passed, I finally got out, "What's going on here?"
Turning serious, or at least as serious as she could get, Pinkie replied, "I don't know. This is your dream silly."
I relaxed slightly, "So this..... Is all a dream."
"Probably," She replied with a giggle.
Slightly confused, I asked , "Okay, if this is my dream.... then why are you here.... and why did you try to kill me?"
"I didn't try to kill you silly!" She said throwing a hoof around me. "It's OBVIOUSLY a Nightmare Night party. And What Nightmare Night party is complete without a good scare?"
"Ummm...." I was just getting more and more confused as time went on, so I decided to ignore that. "You never answered what you were doing here."
She began giggling again. "Didn't i tell you already Silly? We're in a dream."
I scrunched up my face in confusion, and had just opened my mouth to ask another question, when Pinkie shushed me, and put her hoof on my mouth. "SHH!" She said, "It's time for you to wake up....."
Diving behind the wooden counter, she began to rummage through something back there, all the while muttering. "where is it?"
" I know it'- AH-HA!" she exclaimed jumping up, and over the counter again. In her hooves was a large, sky blue cannon on wooden wheels. I started to ask her what it was for, when I realized that she was aiming it at me.
"Wait! What are you doing?"
"Good Morning!" she yelled in response, before pulling the string. The cannon fired with a loud squeak, and blasted confetti at me.
I woke up with a gasp, and sat up. Sunlight was just beginning to filter through the hospital room's window, illuminating the soft green walls. Sighing, I flopped back down into the bed, and stared at the window. All I could think, was, What in Celetia just happened?