I suppose there was something therapeutic about the hooficure, even if every brush against the frog of my hoof made me flinch and laugh. By the time it was done my hooves felt better than I could ever remember.
Is this the best my hooves have felt, or did I just forget the last time? It is odd to remember something like how Fluttershy got her cutie mark, but not whether or not we’ve seen each other since the accident. She says I’ve seen her several times, but as far as I can recall this is the first.
Either way, when the nightmares began that night I woke up to find her next to me in bed. I hate to admit it, but I cried myself to sleep in her arms.
The worst part isn’t the nightmares. It’s the feeling that there’s something wrong with me. I go through all the motions: I cry, slam a door, or smile in front of other ponies. Each time it feels hollow. She had me wrapped up, sang me a lullaby, and I just lay there staring at the wall. I didn’t feel sad, or safe, I just felt. . . nothing. It was a refreshing, I suppose, because I slept through the night without another nightmare.
When morning came, I ate a few oatcakes and tofu-bacon. The syrup didn’t seem as sweet as I remembered. It was a quiet breakfast and we didn’t talk much. With all that was on my mind, I found it easier to just ignore Fluttershy and the animals, and finished breakfast quickly. As my mind wandered I opened the front door and walked out. I ran muzzle-first into Derpy as she was delivering mail. Seeing her, I wondered if she could help me get some straight answers. She was a pony who liked helping others face and overcome their own adversity.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Derpy said.
My lungs expanded as I inhaled deeply, taking in the crisp morning air. “No, that was my fault, Derpy. I’ve had a lot on my mind. Are you headed back to town on your mail route?”
“Sure am, Dash. Rough night?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Actually, yeah.” I followed her after she dropped off Fluttershy’s mail and headed back towards town. “I suppose there are a few things, but it all started with my accident. Did you see what happened?”
“Oh.” Derpy looked away for a second, appearing unsure if she should say anything at all.
“Please! Ponies are treating me like I’m different now, like if they tell me what happened I’ll snap!” I looked up from the road and into her eyes. “I need to know, why are they treating me different?”
Derpy looked back with a slight smile on her face. “Well, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you.” I nodded at her to continue. “You called out all your friends, the weather team, and the fillies to watch your new stunt. You’d been practicing for weeks and were finally ready to do it at full speed.”
“Sounds like me, then what happened?” I asked.
“Well. . . you were hit by lightning after doing a sonic rainboom. It happened so fast—the stunt was supposed to involve you making a thunderhead and beating the thunder out of the cloud. All I saw was a black streak falling from the cloud, and heard you crash near some of the other spectators.”
I frowned and tried to imagine what it would feel like to hit the ground going that fast. There had been several occasions where I had crashed, but never at that speed. As we crossed the bridge into town, I could see the field where I did most of my stunt practice.
“Then there were just so many ponies running to help you, and Twilight asked us to step back. It didn’t look like you were moving or breathing. The next time I saw you, you were in a coma. . . is this helping any?”
I looked back at Derpy and smiled for her. “Yeah, I just needed to hear it from someone who wouldn’t sugarcoat it. You ever have ponies who won’t tell you stuff because they think it’ll hurt you?”
Derpy and I headed down the road to the central marketplace. “Of course. Sometimes it’s the lies they tell to protect us that hurt the most.” She stopped in front of the post office, and pulled a muffin out of her saddlebag. “Here, I’ve got to go but you need this more than I do.”
I smiled and looked at the muffin, licking my lips. “Hey, thanks!”
Grabbing the muffin, I bit into it. I spat the muffin out as soon as I tasted it. “Ew! I hate blueberries.”
Derpy frowned. “But they’ve always been your favorite.”
The muffin in my hoof mocked me. It was my favorite flavor, according to a pony who hadn’t been hit on the head recently, and yet it tasted awful. I took another defiant bite, determined to prove it was my favorite, and once again the horrid taste of blueberries assaulted my taste buds.
“Sorry, Derpy. I don’t like them anymore. Thanks anyway.”
She just shrugged and popped the rest of the muffin into her mouth before getting back to work. After waving goodbye, I spotted Applejack across the marketplace. I approached her to put a new theory to the test.
“Howdy, Dash. Glad ta see ya. How are ya today?” Applejack asked.
“Great.” I smiled and leaned against the apple stand. “You remember that you said I could talk to you about anything?”
Applejack smiled and adjusted her stetson. “Of course, sugar cube, what’s on your mind?”
“I want to hear it from you, how bad was my crash?”
She glanced around quickly before looking back at me. “Dash, ya hit the ground goin’ fast. What more is there to know? Ah ain’t a stunt pony so ah don’t know why it happened.”
“How about this: what was the stunt?” I asked. “Was I breathing after the crash?”
“Y’all were just doin’ a rainboom, and of course ya were breathin’, you’re here, aren’t ya? Why the sudden interest?”
I grimaced and furrowed my brow. I wanted to feel angry, yet I couldn’t seem to get that spark. She was lying to my face, being disloyal, and all I felt was apathy.
“It matters because you're treating me like a filly. You’re the Element of Honesty, and you can’t even admit I did a rainboom, got struck by lightning, and hit the ground so hard I stopped breathing!”
“And what? Ya want my advice so ya can pull off the stunt better next time? Or tellin’ ya how bad ya scared me when ya nearly killed yourself over a stupid trick. Will that make ya feel better?” Applejack shook her head, using the opportunity to wipe a couple tears from her face.
“No!” I hit my hoof on the stand when she tried to shield her eyes with the brim of her stetson. “Every day I know there is something wrong but I can’t figure out what. Every night I have nightmares. Then all of you, my friends, treat me like I’m not alright, like I’m not Dash! I want you to treat me normal, like before the crash. I want you to treat me as the only pony who could kick your flank in the Iron Pony competition and do a rainboom in under ten seconds flat! Stop treating me like I’m gonna run off and hurt myself over some stupid stunt!”
Applejack swallowed and took a few breaths. She kept her eyes locked with mine. “Ah’m sorry, okay? If ya want the truth ah’ll give it to ya, ah won’t sugarcoat it anymore. How can we settle this, Dash? Ah want us to go back to the way things used ta be too, but how can ah convince you that you’re fine, when ya can’t convince yourself?”
Sighing, I slumped on the stand in defeat. “Dang it, I wish I knew.”
Her hoof gently touched my shoulder and she whispered into my ear. “Look, sugar cube, you’ve had a lot of excitement lately. Why don’t ya just go home and relax, and we’ll worry about gettin’ things back to normal later, okay?”
“You’ve got a point.” I lifted my head up and stopped slouching over her apple stand.
Looking around, I spotted a few ponies waiting behind me in line to buy apples. They were comical as they gazed in every direction other than at me. I wanted to be angry with them for making a spectacle out of it; to be able to laugh at them for pretending there wasn’t a fully grown mare breaking down at an apple stand.
I shook my head and took to the air, leaving the marketplace behind me. It never took long to get to my house since it floated over central Ponyville. I knocked my hooves against the clouds outside to get the dirt off, and walked inside.
Tank was sitting by the food bowl in the kitchen, and I was quick to get him some of the turtle food Fluttershy supplied me with. I found a piece of lettuce that was still fresh and tossed that to him also. With a few taps on the back of his shell, I left him to eat while I went and flopped down on the couch.
My aches and pains faded away as I sank into the couch and sighed. A day of relaxation might be just what the doc—what I needed. The weather team hadn’t hunted me down that morning, so they likely handled today’s weather without me.
My eyes fell to the coffee table which had several Daring Do books that were scattered across it. Leaning forward allowed me to browse the titles of the books in front of me. After scanning them, I settled on reading one that didn’t look familiar: Daring Do and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
So I began to read. For a while, it was very relaxing, until I began to realize what was being done to Daring Do and the fillies she was trying to rescue. Count Vlad was planning to take over Daring’s hometown of Los Pegasus. He had found a way to replace ponies with doppelgangers under his control. They were sort of like changelings, but could only change once and that was when they replaced a pony. They were perfect copies of the pony until called upon by their master.
My mind began to race at the implications, and soon I found myself taking notes from the book. On a small, yellow pad I scribbled down all the signs that Daring Do was using to determine if a pony had been replaced. She had to capture each one before they could escape and rescue the impersonated ponies.
My list was getting long by the time I reached the last chapter of the book, and Daring came face to face with Vlad. There was an epic battle where it was revealed that Daring Do had actually been a doppelganger all along. Vlad said he killed the original Daring Do, planning to make her copy his ally. There had been an accident that had removed her programming. Now the clone of Daring was just as heroic as the original and wanted to bring Vlad to justice.
I didn’t finish the book. I couldn’t. My heart was racing and for the first time that day, I was glad to feel emotionally numb. I looked down at the list on the coffee table.
1. Daring found medical records being tampered with, and ponies were replaced before leaving the hospital in Los Pegasus.
2. Ponies absorbed the memories of the victim, but had trouble with new memories after that. Daring couldn’t remember when she cut her leg and her blood was the wrong color.
3. Doppelgangers have orange blood.
4. Daring caught Vlad because the copies didn’t understand emotion.
5. Doppelgangers are afraid of lightning, because Vlad created them using it.
6. Daring was a copy all along, and her original was kill—
I had stopped writing as little pieces in my mind began to click into place. It was ridiculous to think I was a changeling because I did not need to feed on emotions. In fact, I barely felt them; the only emotions that felt real were fear and frustration. Both of those feelings were focused on Twilight and hospitals. At least the lightning was something I could see, but the things they could do to me when I was unconscious scared me far more.
It took me half an hour to work up the courage, but I finally decided I had to use this checklist to find out if I’d been replaced. At the very least, knowing I wasn’t a doppelganger would help me sleep better for a couple nights.
The most readily available, surefire way, was to cut myself and see what color my blood was. According to the book, if my blood was red then I was a pony and if it was orange I was a doppelganger.
I walked into the kitchen, careful not to step on Tank as he got some exercise. I realized he hadn’t gotten to fly in a while and I made a mental note to take him out again soon.
I rummaged around until I found the roll of bandages Fluttershy had once given me, and a knife. The blade was sharp, and I wasted no time picking it up and placing it above my left forearm, right above the hoof.
I counted to three nervously and closed my eyes. The blade slid across my flesh. It stung, and I bit my lip to muffle a grunt of pain as it opened the shallow wound. Reluctantly, I opened an eye to see what color my blood was. It was red.
I laughed as the nervous energy faded away, and thrust my injured forearm in front of Tank in excitement. “It’s red! I’m not a copy!” Tank tilted his head and raised an eyelid. “Come on, Tank, that means there’s only four more to check off!”
Looking down at the list, I realized I couldn’t really check off emotion, electricity, or the final clue. The only one I could investigate next was if my medical records had been altered.
Perhaps I could ask a nurse to see them this time and compare what they brought me to what I had seen when I snuck in.
I picked up the yellow roll of bandage Fluttershy had given to me. It even had some small pink butterflies on it, which left me wondering why she’d give me a fillies’ bandage. We had always been as close as sisters, so I shrugged it off as coincidence.
I wrapped the gauze around my leg three times then stuck it to itself. With the dressing in place, I put my list in a saddle bag and left for the hospital. The sun had nearly set, and I realized that the book had taken all day to read. I made it to the hospital and walked through the front doors to see Nurse Redheart working the front desk.
The double doors swung closed as I turned around to look outside. Did I space out on the way here? For some odd reason I couldn’t remember if I’d walked or flown here. I was pretty sure I landed near the center of town and walked, but my hooves weren’t dirty.
“Good evening, Dash, what brings you in tonight?” she asked.
I smiled, and pointed at the sign at the side of the desk listing patient rights. “I’d like to see my medical record.”
Redheart looked as though I was just another boring patient asking another boring question. It was a good thing I have never played poker with her.
“Alright, Ms. Dash, I’ll be right back.”
After Redheart left I congratulated myself. Either they’d bring back my real record, with all that doctor mumbo-jumbo in it, or they’d bring me a fake that lied about the surgery. I would finally get my answers, yet suddenly I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. If they’re fake, that means I am an imposter! It’s okay. . . maybe they’re going to be real and I just hit my head after all!
While I waited for her to return I began to stare at the clock, watching it tick. With each tick I could imagine a memory vanishing, or an emotion I would no longer feel. The more I imagined myself as some sort of robot, the more convincing my nightmares became.
Redheart returned while I was in a staring contest with the clock. “Here you go, Ms. Dash.”
“Oh, thanks.” I grabbed the records in my mouth and flew to the nearby chair, unfolding it into my legs, and using my front hooves to look through it.
The opening pages looked much like I remembered. Stuff about me being brought in, my injuries, and all the numbers from the labs. There used to be some squiggly lines on graph paper, but those were gone now. I think it was called an EVG, or EGE, or something that definitely had E’s in it. Where did it go?
Continuing on, I noticed the small notes from Nurse Redheart were gone too. I knew it had said I went to surgery, that was the whole point of breaking in! Now that note was nowhere to be found. According to the new note she had written, I had spent a month in a coma, and then miraculously awoken after a visit from Twilight.
The rest of the record contained some flight physicals and the one time I’d injured my wing. Usually I was mare enough to walk off any injuries I got.
I frowned, feeling the weight of their betrayal crashing down. I slumped forward and dropped the record to the floor. The hospital had lied. Twilight had lied. They not only had hidden stuff from me, they changed what was left to fit their lies. Now I had proof they’d removed the graphs and the note from Redheart. Even the illegible writing of the doctors was suddenly neat and tidy.
My gaze drifted to my bandage, which had a large orange stain on it. “Oh no!” I shouted.
“Dash, are you okay?” Redheart asked. She walked around the counter towards me with wide eyes, and a concerned smile.
“Stay back!” I screamed. “My blood is orange! I’m not real!”
Redheart pushed a button on the wall. “Dash, please calm down. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I continued to pace backwards away from her. “You lied, Redheart! That’s not my real medical record! And, my blood is orange, just like in the boo—no, wait! There’s still the rest of the list.”
“Dash, please, you’re not making sense. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” She had been joined by a unicorn doctor. He was eyeing me, and standing ready to pounce.
“Lightning, no I’m definitely afraid of lightning. What about emotions? Does fear count? Or is this anger? Maybe they feel emotions but they don’t know what they are!” I shifted my gaze between the two ponies. “Why won’t you tell me?! What am I?!”
The door opened behind me and I spun around. Two large orderlies blocked the exit of the hospital.
“Restrain her!” Redheart shouted.
The ponies closed in on me. The Earth ponies by the door were the first to lunge. I still had my back to them so I bucked the nearest one in the face; launching myself off him and flying over Redheart.
The doctor’s horn was glowing, so I spun, feeling my back hooves hit him in the face. The move allowed me to reverse course easily, simultaneously disrupting his spells. The exit now only had one Earth pony in front of it. I easily swooped around him and out of the hospital.
I could hear the medical staff running after me. There wasn’t a pegasus among them, but they would expect me to go home. I had to go somewhere else before they got one who could keep up with me. I flew into town at full speed, losing them. I landed abruptly and loudly in the dirt in front of Sugarcube Corner.
My breaths were quick and ragged. This can’t be happening, it’s got to be a mistake. It’s just a book. Twilight must have done something illegal to save me, and got scared. I bet that’s why the medical record changed! And the blood, it’s not orange—it was probably the lights! Or that freaky bandage!
I looked up to the sky, recalling my inability to create thunderstorms anymore.
No, I’m not afraid of lightning, I’m afraid of dying! Derpy said I got struck by lightning! Please, I don’t want to be a copy!
At that moment, as I was about to walk into Sugarcube Corner, the door flew open. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle trotted out, with a bouncing Pinkie Pie behind them. “Her party is going to be fun—Fun! Fun! Fun!—FUN! FUN! FUN!”
“Get back! All of you!” I shouted.
“FUN! FUN! FUN!”
There were at least two dozen Pinkie Pies running all around the watering hole. One of them bounced onto my umbrella, and I had to shake her off. She was trying to get inside and get me!
Everyone one of them continued chanting “Fun! Fun! Fun!” as they bounced around. They destroyed the tire swing, the chair I had brought, and knocked the cooler holding my drinks over.
As far as my eyes could see there was nothing but Pinkie Pie’s. Swimming, jumping, sleeping, climbing, shouting. . . and chanting fun.
“Hey, Dash! Come out and play!”
I pulled the umbrella down and hid.
“Dash! Wake up, Dash!”
Something hit me in the nose, snapping me out of my flashback. “Dash! What are you staring at? Is it a game? Is there a leprechaun in my nose?” Pinkie asked.
“I’m a copy. I’m from the mirror pool,” I said despondantly.
Pinkie jumped circles around me. “Oh, a mystery game! Hmm... You can’t be a copy because we closed the mirror pool. Maybe you’re a changeling! We should go find some black paint an—”
I grabbed Pinkie by the mane and brought her muzzle to mine. “How did you know?”
Pinkie tilted her head. “Know what, silly filly?”
I pointed towards town hall. “When we rounded up all the Pinkie’s. How did you know if you were a clone from the mirror pool or the real Pinkie? How did you know Twilight wouldn’t send you back?!”
Pinkie frowned and slouched her shoulders. “Oh, Dash. . . I didn’t. I just had to try my hardest and hope for the best. Are—Dash are you okay?”
“Pinkie, I think I’m from the mirror pool.”
Pinkie giggled. “But, Dash, there’s only one of you.”
I let her go and took a deep breath. “You saw me crash Pinkie?” She nodded. “And I died, didn’t I? I bet Twilight made a copy of me, somehow, before I died!”
Pinkie frowned and her hair began to flatten out. “I—did you try giggling at it?”
A small laugh escaped my lips without humor. “No, it slipped my mind, Pinkie.”
“You’re my friend, Dash. You’re the only Dash, and I’ll do whatever it takes to help you prove it!” Pinkie hugged me, nearly choking me. I turned my head to the side and saw Redheart and Doctor Stable in the distance, talking to a few ponies on the street as they were walking past them. I saw one point in our direction.
“You’ll do anything, Pinkie?”
Pinkie let go, and I pushed her inside of Sugarcube Corner. “Why, of course, Dash. That’s what friends do.”
My heart was still racing as I glanced around the empty store. “Pinkie Promise you won’t let them take me! I don’t want them to zap me back to the mirror pool, or erase me, or whatever it is they do!”
“But you’re not a—”
I spun around and looked directly into her eyes. “What if I am a clone? Or, what if they think I am and zap me anyway! Promise me, or I’m leaving.” I turned to push my way out the front door and take off.
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” She tapped her closed eye with her hoof, then looked at me. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but you’re safe with me. Nopony hurts my friends.”
I turned around to look at Pinkie. She had a wide smile despite the dull, flat mane hanging down her side. Before her Pinkie Sense could go off, I had pulled her into the biggest hug I’d likely ever given anypony. “Oh, thank you.”
Pinkie lit back up when she saw my smile. “Come on, let’s go to my room! You’ll be safe with Gummy!”
We ran up the stairs to the top floor. The entire top floor of the house was Pinkie’s room. It was like a tower in a medieval castle, only with much more pink and boxes full of party supplies. She locked the door behind us.
Pinkie had bunk beds, which was odd since I don’t recall anypony sleeping over with her before; she was prepared for anything. “You can take the top bunk, Dash.”
I flew onto the top bunk and curled up on the bed sheet. She tossed Gummy up, and he crawled over and lay down against my leg.
In the safety of Pinkie’s room I finally opened up and began to cry. Pinkie must have rummaged through my stuff, because she bounced onto the bed with my yellow notepad. “Hey, it’ll be okay, Dash. Lookie at your list! You can’t be a doppelganger because your blood is red, silly!”
I looked at my leg as she pulled the yellow bandage off, revealing the red blood still oozing beneath. I looked at the orange spot on the bandage and chuckled.
“Plus, I think I’d remember if we killed you and replaced you with your evil twin! You don’t even have a moustache. Everypony knows that evil twins have moustaches! Plus, your list says they don’t have emotions, but you’re super emotional right now.”
The more she rambled on about why I really was her best friend, the better I began to feel. I even found myself believing her, and smiled.
“And that first one is just silly!” Pinkie threw the notepad in the air with a dash of confetti. “Who would want to alter your medical re—”
“Pinkie Pie!” A familiar voice shouted. “Open up. I need to talk to Dash.”