Just Human, chapter 7: Sleep
The sun had just risen above Ponyville, shedding light on the townsfolk as they went about their business. It was miles removed from what it had looked like the other day, when everypony was agitated, tired and restless. Twilight was already underway to the hospital, perhaps a little on the late side to join her friends. In the distance she could already see them, waving hooves at her approach.
“Hey Twilight! We’re all set whenever you’re... uh...” Rainbow Dash called out cheerfully, before her mouth dropped open in shock, soon followed by everypony else in the group. Twilight knew why, of course. She had stayed up all night without even attempting to groom herself when the sun rose, but that didn’t stop her. She didn’t have any more time to waste on niceties.
“T-Twilight? Are you...?” Fluttershy asked, though she couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence as Twilight walked past her at a brisk pace. Judging from the sound behind her, her friends followed, though they had to run to catch up to her.
“Twilight? You’re not going to do anything reckless, are you? I mean, I know I’ve told you you could be a bit more impulsive from time to time, but this may not be... Wise,” Rarity said, cringing as Twilight blew some stray strands of hair out of her face.
“Twi’, listen to me. Just cause this is lookin’ bad, don’t mean you shouldn’t think this through,” Applejack said.
“Oh, I have. I was up all night coming up with the plan.”
“You were? What did you come up with?”
“You’ll see.”
They walked into the hospital together, as Twilight made a beeline for the quarantined ward. A friar had been put on guard just outside the double doors. No doubt somepony had anticipated that she’d try to enter again.
“Hey you!” the friar called out, more than a little nervously as Twilight headed right for him. She was pretty sure she could see a bead of sweat forming on his brow. “You shouldn’t be here! P-Professor Greymane said—”
Twilight’s horn began to glow with magical power, combined with a purplish aura surrounding the friar, who suddenly slid along the hospital floor several paces before he mercifully stopped just short of the wall. He let out a brief sigh of relief, before Twilight turned herself to her goal again. She practically kicked open the double door, making her way straight for the room where she knew Greymane was keeping the creature. None of the nurses or friars who she encountered along the way tried to stop her. In fact, most of them hurried to get out of the way.
“Twi’, are you sure about this?” Applejack asked uncertainly, but Twilight didn’t bother to respond. Explaining it would cost her time, and she didn’t have that.
It wasn’t long at all before they reached the door, which Twilight opened without hesitation. Within, several white curtains had been drawn around a large area within the room, with several nurses and friars peeking around them to see what the commotion is about. Professor Greymane wasted no time in walking up to Twilight, physically blocking her way to the creature as he shot her a stern gaze.
“Miss Sparkle, might I ask you what you think you’re doing? You know as well as anypony that treating a comatose patient, especially one in this condition, requires delicacy and concentration!”
No sooner had he said that, than did another crescendo of metal clattering to the floor sound through the room. A few paces further a charcoal black pegasus stood over a whole bunch of surgical tools which had fallen to the floor, looking rather guilty.
“S-Sorry.”
Professor Greymane used a hoof to rub the bridge of his nose, no doubt nursing a terrible migraine, before turning his attention back to Twilight.
“Miss Sparkle, Twilight, Princess Celestia herself has bestowed on me her trust in dealing with this matter. I ask only that you do not question her decision. Now, would you mind explaining to me why you’re here?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. The reason why I’m here is simple,” said Twilight, as she managed a mischievous smile, “I’m here to present you an ultimatum. Allow me to conduct my own investigation of the creature immediately... Or else!”
He looked at her, dumbfounded, tilting his head just slightly to the side. She returned the stern gaze he had given her earlier.
“Or else what?”
“Or else you’ll be dealing with the one thing that document signed by the princess has no authority over.” she said plainly, but this only seemed to confuse the professor even more.
“And what would that be?” he asked, when suddenly Twilight’s face turned to a snarl as she gritted her teeth and prepared herself to execute “the plan.”
“Me.”
Twilight’s horn began to glow intensely, magic pouring out of it like a fountain, as a purple aura grabbed everypony present, save for Twilight and her friends. With peeps and cries of alarm, the entire staff of Professor Greymane had become airborne, and began floating towards the open door.
“Miss Sparkle, what do you think you’re do—” Professor Greymane shouted before the door closed behind him. The glow of Twilight’s horn died down shortly, before regaining its powers as Twilight focused her attention to a new target.
This time, the door began to glow, and with a flash, a sturdy iron bar, with a lock in its centre, had been placed over the door. The glow, both from the door and Twilight’s horn, died down, and she gasped for breath as the strain of so much spellcasting at once hit her.
A few knocks came from the other side of the door, as people tried to open the door. Some shouting was heard, but the walls were insulated and most of it was too muffled to make out. All her friends looked at her, even more dumbstruck than Greymane in the face of his “ultimatum.”
“That was your plan!?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed loudly.
“There was no other way! That document gave him full authority over everypony in town, and it would take too much time to alert Princess Celestia!”
Rarity put her hoof to the bridge of her nose, apparently nursing the same migraine that Greymane was suffering from.
“This won’t come back to haunt us now, will it?”
“Probably not,” Twilight said. “If the princess hears about this, she’ll come to investigate, but if we tell her our side of the story, she’ll have no choice but to tell us we were right to act!” Twilight answered with no small amount of pride in her voice that she had been able to come up with this.
Her friends didn’t seem so convinced. After a moment of awkward silence, she rubbed the back of her head.
“Yeah... That plan actually sounded better when I came up with it.”
Nervously, the group turned their attention to the white curtains which were undoubtedly shrouding the creature. Soft breathing could be heard on the other side. Using her magic, Twilight carefully slid open the curtain. Behind it, several beds had been pressed together, as the creature was too tall for a normal hospital bed to suffice. Bandages had been wrapped extensively around his left leg, which had been mauled in the fight with the chimaera, the memory of which made Twilight wince slightly. An IV drip had been attached to one of the creature’s forelegs, slowly allowing a clear liquid to replace those the creature had lost. However, despite the commotion, it still slept peacefully, or more accurately, hadn’t awakened from its coma.
“So, this is the creature that saved us?” Rarity questioned curiously, which didn’t surprise Twilight. After all, Rarity had been rendered unconscious just before the fight really started, so she had no chance to see the creature for herself. Rarity walked up next to the bed, using her forehooves to prop herself up and get a better look. “I had imagined something more... Fierce. The poor dear. It looks like he’s had it even harder than us lately.”
Most of the creature’s arms and legs were exposed, the clothing pulled aside to reveal skin pockmarked with scratches and bruises. Fluttershy hovered just slightly above the creature, inspecting it with a sad look on her face.
“He must be in a lot of pain. Goodness, he hardly has any fur left, just tiny little hairs. He c-could be s-sick.”
“Good point, Fluttershy,” Twilight commented as she looked across the tables that had been gathered near the creature. One of them was labelled as a journal belonging to Professor Whitemane. Embracing the booklet with her magic, she hovered it to herself and opened it on the first page, and began to read aloud.
“Day one, treatment of unknown creature.
We managed to stabilize the creature by giving it a simple IV drip. Preliminary tests have shown the creature to be remarkably durable. Despite failure of magical treatments of the extensive damage he has suffered, he has recovered admirably on his own strength. So far, the duration of his coma can only be speculated at, but I am confident it won’t be much more than twenty-four hours. We will continue to monitor the creature’s progress. Beyond keeping him hydrated and his wounds cleaned, there isn’t much we can do.”
Beyond this first entry was a detailed sketch of the creature’s body, which was about 90% complete, the professor being unwilling to remove too much of the creature’s clothing for fear of opening up unseen wounds. There were several pages, some just stuffed into the journal as additional notes, but the information was quite extensive. Everything ranging from how to best bandage each of the creature’s wounds, to instructions on how to make the IV drip they were using, to guesses why magical treatment had failed.
“Well, this solves our biggest problem. With this, we should be able to take care of him ourselves! Fluttershy, as you have the most experience out of any of us, do you think you can handle keeping the wounds on his leg clean and keeping his IV drip going?”
Fluttershy gave the stained bandages on the creature’s leg a pensive look, before nodding.
“Alright. Rarity, I could use your help sorting out the professor’s notes and the supplies they stored in this room. The rest of you should probably keep a lookout, in case the professor tries to break through the door.”
“Not to be a downer, Twilight, but what do you think he’s gonna do? Try to ram the door down? Cause I’d like to see him try,” Rainbow Dash snickered.
“Actually, I think that right about now, he’ll have no choice but to inform Princess Celestia, and that’s exactly what I’m counting on. Until then, we just have to try and do our best to solve the issue. ”
Hours passed as Twilight and Rarity sorted out the different notes they had scattered over a table. While Applejack remained on guard, watching with waning interest how the door shuddered occasionally with the feeble attempts of ponies on the other side trying to contact them or break down the door. Pinkie and Dash had made sure the windows were secured, and afterwards had taken to playing games to lighten the mood. Fluttershy stuck closest to the creature, though not entirely without apprehension. She dared not let her patient rest unsupervised, that much was obvious, but Twilight was sure that she wasn’t so keen about being this close when the creature woke up.
“Alright, I should have everything I need to begin our own examination,” Twilight announced as she brought a whole bundle of books on a table on wheels to the creature’s bed. The rest of her friends gathered around the bed as well, no doubt out of curiosity, and because it was about time to break the monotony of standing guard for most of the day. “We’ll start with a simple physical. Shouldn’t be that difficult, even though we’re essentially dealing with an unknown species here... Fluttershy, what can you tell us about his injuries?”
Fluttershy averted her eyes as the group turned its attention to her, instead looking at the creature’s injured leg with a pained expression.
“H-he suffered serious i-injuries to his left leg. I-it’s not broken, thank goodness, and didn’t get infected. He won’t walk again on that leg for two weeks or more, if he rests well, but he should be f-fine. All his other injuries are minor.”
“Great start Fluttershy,” Twilight commented. She originally also planned to have a look at his injured leg herself, but she happened to sneak a peek when Fluttershy was changing his bandages. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and she secretly wondered how the timid Fluttershy was able to stomach the sight without flinching. Twilight quickly wrote some notes in her own blank notebook, for future reference. “In that case, I’m just going to look him over really quick.”
The first thing she started with were the creature’s strange forelegs, one of which was already being held up by Pinkie. “Oooh, look! If you hold it up just right, it kinda looks like a spider! If spiders had five legs...” Pinkie chirped happily, though the idea seemed to make Rarity shudder.
Now that her attention was drawn to it, she did find the “claw” of the creature to be a strange sight. It had five appendages, rather than the four she was used to from non-hoofed creatures, which were slender and long, and didn’t really end in claws at all. They were short and stubby, and hardly even seemed sharp. It’s rear legs ended in similarly strange appendages, though these seemed to be far more designed for walking.
“Not much of a weapon, is it, Twi’?” Applejack commented.
“Oooh,” Rarity cooed from the other side of the bed, carefully inspecting the sleeve of the creature’s shirt. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice this before! This stitching... It’s exquisite! More than that! It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen!”
“How so?” Twilight asked.
“Just look carefully. Each and every stitch is perfectly aligned, not one is out of place, save for some wear and tear! Imagine the patience the seamstress who created this must’ve had to make sure every thread and every stitch was perfectly placed. I mean, the colour is a little drab, and it certainly wouldn’t do for today’s fashion, but that doesn’t change the sheer craftsmanship that must’ve been required to create this! I do wonder, however, who would go through this much effort to sew a shirt, only to make it so... Dull, for lack of a better term.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes dismissively. “Maybe where he’s from, they don’t have fashion.” She then immediately covered her mouth with her hooves as she realised what she just said. Rarity’s eyes nearly bugged out of her skull, as she reared up on her rear hooves, putting one of her hooves over her forehead and opening her mouth to mime a scream, though no sound actually came.
She kept that pose for a few seconds, before looking at Twilight imploringly. Twilight sighed deeply, before using her magic to roll a hospital bed behind Rarity, allowing her to safely fall backwards and begin to sulk.
“The horror! The travesty! What kind of nightmarish place doesn’t know fashion! No wonder the poor thing fled it’s home!”
Twilight decided it was for the best if she just went about her business. She made a few notes about the complexity of the creature’s clothing and lack of useful claws in her notebook, before turning her examination on the creature’s head. A thick dark-blond mane covered it, the only significant patch of hair they had managed to find on the creature’s body, which made Twilight hope that, if the creature was balding as a result of sickness, that such a sickness wasn’t infectious. To her surprise, however, she noted a thin layer of hair was starting to break through on the creature’s cheeks, chin and upper lip. She shook off the thought, and gently used a hoof to raise one of the creature’s eyelids. Its green eyes seemed tiny, compared to hers, but they had obviously been functional when the creature was awake.
Next, she used the same method to raise the creature’s upper lip, and the sight made her heart skip a beat. The creature’s teeth were small, but certainly were sharp.
“Oooh...” Fluttershy uttered, which piqued the interest of the group, who were having trouble getting a good look.
“What’s wrong?” asked Applejack.
“It’s t-teeth are s-sharp,” Fluttershy stammered,” which m-means that he c-c-co-co—”
“It means... He might not eat the same things we do,” Twilight interjected, sparing Fluttershy from having to finish that sentence. Unfortunately, it seemed to have been a wasted effort. Her friends now looked at the creature with far more apprehension than before.
A painful silence fell. None dared to verbalize the horrifying thought that had entered everypony’s mind, save for Applejack.
“Twi’, are you sure that, if he wakes up, he’s not gonna... You know.”
“No. He wouldn’t...” Twilight said, though the doubt she tried to fight had already taken root in her mind.
Those teeth aren’t made for chewing hay... This creature attacked a chimaera, practically alone, and lived to tell about it. Not just that, but it won! What if he does eat meat!? What if he turns on us the moment he wakes up like he did on the chimaera!?
She saw all her friends thinking the same thing. For a moment, she seriously doubted whether this whole plan of her was a good idea, and not a result of the trauma she had suffered these past few days. However, there was one fact she could not look past, and she used it to dispel all her doubts.
“If that was his intention from the start, he wouldn’t have saved us. He wouldn’t have risked so much just for us, and even if none of that is true, we owe it to him to give him a chance.”
The rest hesitated, but one by one, they nodded their agreement.
“You’re right Twi’. It ain’t often I have to take something back, but he deserves at least one chance,” Applejack stated.
“Okay... Let’s just continue then,” Twilight replied as she levitated a book to the side of the bed and opened it up on a page labelled “Diagnostic Spells.”
Following the instructions, her horn began to glow, followed by her eyes. With a flash, all sorts of vital information about the creature began to flood her mind. She’d never used this spell before, so it was hard to sort out what was useful and what wasn’t, but it didn’t take that much to adjust.
“Heartrate... High but steady... Oxygen levels... Nutrient levels... Brain activity,” she muttered as she went through all of the information, one by one. As she neared the last of the information the spell gave her, she took a deep breath. The spell was taking a lot more out of her than she had thought it would.
“It seems like he’s... Well, ‘normal’ might be a big word. His immune system is really active, probably fighting off infections before they can take root, and his heartrate and blood pressure are high, though that might be normal for his species. Besides his obvious injuries, I can’t see anything wrong with him.”
“Well, that’s good... Right?” Rainbow Dash asked, though Twilight shook her head just a little, as though that didn’t make any sense.
“That’s just it. I couldn’t find any signs of concussion or brain damage. It isn’t just that there’s no reason for him to not wake up, it’s that there’s no reason for him to be in a coma at all.”
“Then, what do you propose we do next?” Rarity asked, which took Twilight be surprise. She honestly believed that Greymane must have missed something, something vital, but right now, it looked like she was coming to the same conclusions as the professor. He was stable, and there wasn’t much else they could do but keep him that.
“I... There are other spells in this book. I’ll try them out. Maybe this spell just isn’t designed for a creature like him.”
Twilight began trying spell after spell, some designed to scan specific functions of the creature’s anatomy, others similar to the first. After the third or fourth spell, Applejack and Rainbow Dash returned on guard, while the rest of the group watched Twilight as she struggled with the sheer volume of spells to cast.
A neat stack of books had formed next to Twilight as she panted, exhausted by the effort she was forcing herself through. As Twilight reached for another one, Rarity stopped her with a hoof of her own, giving her a painfully pitying look.
“Twilight... Dear, I know you want to help him. We all do, but don’t you think you’re pushing yourself a little too hard now? Go lie down, get some rest.”
A dead end. Again. Do they even think I can save him anymore? Does anypony? Or was this all a goosechase. Did we do more damage than we set out to fix? Maybe... Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
She looked back at the creature. His chest rose and fell softly with his breathing. Twilight couldn’t help but remember the way he looked at her just after he has saved them all. Pleading. Sad, even.
“I can’t stop until I know for sure!” she announced, before her horn exploded in a fountain of light.
She poured everything she had, all her strength and will, into the simple diagnostic spell she had used earlier. She was pushing it far beyond its limits, but right now, that was of only secondary importance. She needed to know for sure he would be okay.
The rush of information flooding into her mind as a result of the spell doubled, tripled, before increasing to tenfold its original speed, and eventually filling her mind with so much information at once that she became unable to process it. Still she pushed herself further and further.
Her eyes were glowing so brightly that it became hard for her to see beyond their glow. Eventually, a bright light engulfed her entire vision, and it was then that she could finally see.
On the other side of the bed stood the spectre, grinning maliciously at her.
“So, you finally found us out, did you, Twilight?”
Twilight looked around. It seemed as though they were trapped in a space that was surrounded by darkness. The only things that seemed to exist were her, the creature, and the spectre.
As she looked down at the creature, she noticed for the first time a swirling vortex of dark matter, centered straight on the creature’s heart.
“What is this?” she asked in shock.
“An opening,” the spectre answered. “An opening into our own little world. Our own little Hell...” The spectre seemed to speak of it almost wistfully, as though it were a home she longed to return too.
“Hell?” Twilight asked, not recognizing the word, before noticing that something coming out of the vortex. It was the very dark matter it was composed off, oozing out of it like a foul slime. It seemed to move with a will of its own, slithering off into the dark of her surroundings before disappearing out of sight. “So this is where you’re from...”
“Yes. So tell me, Twilight, do you want to stop this?” the spectre said, immediately gaining Twilight’s attention. It smiled broadly, revealing countless sharp teeth where none had been before. She rose up over the creature, heading towards her, and Twilight found herself unable to move as the spectre bore down on her.
“Then let’s play, Twilight. Let’s play!”
“Twilight!”
Twilight awoke to the sensation of falling. Rarity grabbed her before she could land, thankfully breaking what could’ve been a nasty drop. She looked around, bewildered, only to realise she was back in the hospital room, her friends all looking down at her with worry.
“Twilight! Goodness gracious, what happened? Did you faint?” Rarity asked.
“Y-yeah, I’m okay. Let me up!”
She pushed herself out of Rarity’s grasp, using her forehooves to push herself up against the creature’s bed again. Just like before, she could see the swirling vortex on the creature’s chest.
“Celestia...” Twilight muttered, as she reached out towards it. She flinched at the first touch with the dark matter, the unnaturally cold sensation of the touch sinking into her hoof. “Do you girls see this?”
All of them stared at the same spot on the creature’s chest, but none of them seemed to acknowledge what Twilight could see.
“Uhm, see what, Twi’?”
Twilight reached out again, this time dipping her hoof well into the vortex. Immediately, she felt as though the life itself was being sucked out of her. For an instant, she thought she was actually being sucked out of her own body.
So that’s what the spectre wants... That’s how I can solve this!
“Twilight? Are you sure you’re feeling... Okay?” Fluttershy asked softly.
“Yes! I know how to fix this! I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I need you girls to cover me while I’m gone. No matter what happens, don’t let anyone interrupt me, alright?”
“What are you going to do? Where are you going Twi’?” Rainbow Dash asked unbelievingly with a twinge of panic to her voice.
“I... I don’t know. But I have to do this... Alone.”
She reached her hoof out to the vortex, no longer trying to pull back as she felt her consciousness slipping away out of her body, sinking into a dark, cold world that she didn’t recognize.
‘Twilight! Twilight!” Rarity called out as she caught Twilight’s limp body. Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t respond.
“What did she do!?” Applejack asked urgently, but Rarity seemed on the verge of panic herself.
“I don’t know!”
The girls looked at each other, despair washing over them like a tide. None of them knew what had just transpired, but they knew it was going to be dangerous, even if only for one of them.
“Just... Just get her on a bed. We’ll do as she said, keep her safe and sound,” Applejack said, though she couldn’t quite believe her own words. “Just... Twi’. I don’t know if you can hear me, but you better come back from this, you hear? You better come back...”
Alex felt himself sinking away. There was a sense of weightlessness, and the feeling of warmth being leeched from his skin by an invisible current surrounding him. He faintly recognized a source of light beyond his closed eyelids, but it was faint, and slowly growing dimmer.
Where am I?
Alex carefully opened his eyes. Through the murky waters surrounding him, he could vaguely see the sun shining down, growing ever smaller as he sank away deeper into the depths.
He moved his head to look around, but darkness surrounded him everywhere but for the light above him. He felt a tug of panic in his chest, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move. His limbs felt weak.
He tried to recall how he could’ve gotten here, but his memory came up a blank. All he remembered was losing consciousness in his own room, but that didn’t make any sense. His head throbbed with pain as he tried to dig for memories he knew should be there.
A dense coldness wrapped around his arms and legs, chilling him to his very bones. He felt himself being dragged further into the deep by some unknown force. He didn’t want it to end like this, but somewhere deep down, a voice was telling him to let go. An eerie calm took hold of him as he tried to force himself to gather the will needed to stop himself from resigning to this fate.
The water above him was broken as something broke through the surface, thousands of bubbles obscuring his vision. When the water finally cleared, he saw, to his amazement, a small equine with a purple coat, a deep blue mane and a horn sinking into the water, her eyes closed.
Panic gripped him, shaking him out of his stupor as he realised that there was something important about that unicorn, though he couldn’t remember what. He tried to call out, but his throat didn’t respond. He tried to struggle against whatever was dragging him further down, but his limbs refused every command. Whatever was dragging him down took a firmer hold of him, and pulled harder. The sun, and with it, the slowly sinking equine, disappeared from his sight as darkness consumed him entirely.
That... Unicorn... Why did she seem so familiar? Why is she here?... Why am I here?