A murmuring sound encroached into the nothingness. At first, it wasn't even noticeable, but as time pressed on, the sound drew louder and more coherent. It was a voice—no—voices. They were saying something. Prying open her eyes, she was blinded by an omnipresent light. It seemed capable of even piercing her eyelids as she tried to block out the onslaught.
"Doctor! She's coming to!" a feminine voice pierced the veil.
Trying to raise a hoof to block out the light, she learned two things. First, her entire leg was unmovable. Second, and more importantly, DON'T DO THAT! The searing pain summoning her muscles to work nearly caused her to scream, but even breathing hurt too much to shout. All she managed was a pained groan. Everything hurt! Oh, Celestia, did it hurt!
"Take it easy," a gentle voice cooed.
Turning to the sound of the voice, she finally saw something other than blinding white. At first all she could make out was the general shape of a pony's face, but that was enough. "I-it hurts," she managed to choke out. The words seemed to be made of fiery sand that cut the insides of her throat. It was as if she hadn't had a drop of water in a week.
"Let's increase your dosage," a new voice called out.
Painfully craning her neck, she found another pony. This time her vision had adjusted enough to recognize him. He was a doctor pony. She'd seen him somewhere before. That's right, he was Ponyville's resident expert on pegasi. For some strange reason, it was only then that she realized she was in a hospital.
"There," the doctor said after fooling with a nearby machine. "The pain won't go away, but it should be more tolerable," he calmly explained as he looked to his patient.
"Is there anything else we can do to make you more comfortable?" The female voice asked.
"Wa...water," she choked out, not even bothering to look back over.
The sound of hooves clopping on tile preceded the reply, "I'll get you a glass. One moment."
The doctor wasn't kidding, the pain was much easier to bear all of a sudden. Unfortunately, as the pain faded, so too did her lucidity. She barely remembered the nurse returning with the water, and after that it all faded into a blur.
She had no clue how much time had passed, but she awoke from her fog to find the same doctor and another unicorn stallion in a white coat at her bedside. The pain was back again, but it wasn't quite as bad as before. It was still pretty bad, though. "Doc?" she muttered as the haze dissipated.
"You get the dosage right this time?" the new doctor chuckled as ribbed the other doctor. This unicorn was jet black with blue eyes so pale they were nearly white. His mane matched the color of his eyes.
The pegasus expert didn't seem to be amused. He turned his gaze back to his patient. "How is the pain?"
"It hurts."
"Can you bear with it long enough to answer some questions?"
Honestly, she wasn't sure, but she was compelled to reply, "Yeah."
"I'll keep it brief to spare you unnecessary discomfort," the new doctor spoke up. "I'm the psychiatrist around here. Name's Ephemeral Mote. Everypony just calls me Mo. This stick-in-the-mud needs me to make sure you're all right upstairs. Apparently you had a pretty nasty concussion." Using his magic, he held a clipboard and a quill out in front of him in a white aura. "We'll start with an easy question: what is...your name?"
That was an easy question. "It's... My name is...um..."
The psychiatrist scribbled on the clipboard. "Don't sweat it," he encouraged. "Let's try another one. Can you tell me where we are?"
She just stared blankly. Despite what the doctor said she was sweating it. Why the hay couldn't she remember her name!? She knew exactly who she was. A picture of herself flashed in her mind. A cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane striking a cool pose atop a fluffy white cloud. Wait a minute...
"Rainbow," she muttered, "R-Rainbow Dash!"
Mo chuckled. "No," he jovially denied. "That would've been a great answer for the first question, but Rainbow Dash isn't even a place."
"Wha...?"
"I'll have to apologize," he said as he ruffled Rainbow Dash's mane, careful to avoid the stitching on the side of her head. "My rapier wit is a bit too sharp for you in this condition," he practically boasted. "Yes, your name is Rainbow Dash. Now, can you tell me where you are?"
Dash had to let most of what the quirky guy said go. Her mind wasn't even close to firing on all cylinders. If it wasn't the medicine, it was her injuries. Injuries? She was at a hospital, how and why was she here?
"Rainbow Dash, do you know where you are?" the unicorn asked for the third time, though his tone was still free from any impatience.
"The hospital," she replied, still distracted by her thoughts. "Why am I here?"
The psychiatrist scribbled some more. "We will get to that in just a moment. Do you know where this hospital is?"
Rainbow Dash might not have known one hospital from another, but with her doctor here there could only be one hospital. "Ponyville."
"Very good," he praised with a smile. "Can you tell me what you do for a living?"
"Weather patrol," Dash curtly replied. She was getting impatient. Her mind was clearing up now and the pain was starting to get unbearable.
Mo let Dash's spite roll off his back effortlessly. "Ready for more challenging questions, eh? How about this: what's the last thing you can remember doing before you woke up in the hospital?"
Rainbow's brow furrowed as she searched her memories for what happened. Whatever was bad enough to leave her in this sorry state should've been etched permanently in her memory. Taking in herself for the first time she found her right foreleg in traction with a solid cast going all the way around her shoulder. There were bandages from the top of her sternum all the way down to her hips. All she could tell from the pain was that whatever they were hiding was something she probably didn't even want to see.
Finally looking back to the doctor, Rainbow shook her head. "I-I don't..."
"Take it easy," he spoke soothingly. "We will work through it together. Try to remember the last meal you had."
While skeptical, she did her best to follow the amicable pony's instruction. The last meal she had...oh! It was at the little café. She was having dinner with Flutter enthusing about—
"Oh my gosh!" Rainbow panicked as she writhed in her bed as much as her wounds would allow. "I gotta go to the race today!"
"Easy! Easy!" Mo urged as he tried to get Dash to calm down. "The competition is already over!"
By the time her actual doctor got to her bedside, she'd stopped squirming. "I-I missed it!?"
"Don't move around so much!" Her doctor scolded. "You'll pop a stitch!"
The psychiatrist rolled his eyes before leaning in close to Rainbow Dash. "Stick-in-the-mud," he whispered to her as he held up a hoof.
Despite herself, Rainbow smiled a bit at Mo's antics. "I can't believe I missed it," she lamented as her smile faded as quickly as it had formed.
"You didn't," the psychiatrist replied. "As I understand it you dominated the competition. You don't remember any of it?"
Rainbow started to shake her head, but that hurt. "N-no," she spoke as she winced. It was really starting to hurt and that stunt she pulled a minute ago certainly didn't help.
"I was afraid of that," Mo claimed as he laid a hoof on Rainbow's, to which she recoiled. Withdrawing his hoof and making a mental note that this particular patient did not like to be touched, he continued, "You see, long term memories take time to form and become cemented in our minds. At the competition your accident resulted in a concussion of epic proportions. That blow likely prevented the long term memories from forming properly. Everything else checks out and you are surprisingly cognizant for a pony in your condition."
"So... I'm not gonna remember what happened?"
The psychiatrist sighed. "I can't say for certain, but typically with an injury like yours you may regain disjointed memories of the day of your accident, but they will be vague and anything close to the time of the accident is surely lost forever."
"So, she's not going to be able to tell us what happened," her doctor dourly surmised.
"You...don't know what happened to me?" Dash asked as she looked between the two unicorns.
"You fell right out of the sky," her doctor brusquely informed her. "We have a pretty good idea of why, but we were hoping you could confirm it."
Those words were almost...insulting. "I...fell?"
"Straight down into a lake," the psychiatrist confirmed. "Probably one of the best splashes in all of Equestrian history. And you get to live to tell the tale. You should consider yourself very lucky."
"I don't feel lucky," she spoke her thoughts.
"Hey," he said in a very serious tone. "It's nothing short of a miracle that you survived at all. You are lucky."
Sensing where the conversation was heading, Rainbow Dash's doctor left to get a couple of nurses and a sedative—just in case.
Rainbow just seemed stunned as she focused on her cast. "How long am I gonna be stuck here?"
"Well, the guy to answer that question just left," Mo replied. Putting his gaze on a half-empty glass of water at Dash's bedside, he grabbed it in his white aura. "Let's teach him a lesson about abandoning his patients in their time of need," he claimed as he slightly opened the door and precariously placed the glass atop the door with his magic.
Just as Mo's aura left the glass, the door burst open as Rainbow Dash's doctor entered. Gravity did the rest. The glass tumbled from the top of the door, soaking the doctor's perfectly manicured mane as the glass itself scored a ringer on his horn. Rainbow Dash, Ephemeral Mote, and even the two nurses behind the doctor burst out laughing at his ire. Though, Rainbow's laughter quickly extinguished. It really, really hurt for her to laugh.
Dash's doctor lifted the glass from his horn with his magic as he glared at Mo. The psychiatrist quickly pointed a hoof at Rainbow Dash. "She did it!"
"Yes, I'm quite sure," he sarcastically replied.
"Our little prankster here has a question for you," Mo claimed.
Rainbow Dash was busy trying to will the fire in sides away. Laughter in no way, shape, or form was the best medicine. At least not in this case. "Guh...h-how long'm I gonna be here?"
"A week, thereabouts," the doctor warned as he filed in with the nurses. "We have to monitor your progress and you will be bedridden for a few days."
Rainbow Dash groaned.
"After that you will still need to come in regularly for follow-ups and therapy."
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Dash complained. "When'll I be able to fly?"
Dead silence.
Rainbow Dash watched the doctor and Mo exchange worried glances before Mo spoke up. "About that, Rainbow Dash..." He muttered.
She did not like where this was going. "J-just how long is it gonna be!?"
"When you hit the water you very nearly died. You need to understand just how lucky you are simply to be alive right now," Mo gravely continued.
Rainbow Dash whimpered. "How...bad is it?
"Your right wing was...torn off on impact," Mo broke the news to the cyan pegasus.
Dash immediately tried to squirm so that she could touch her right wing with her left hoof, but between her injuries and her right leg in traction, she just couldn't reach. She would've asked if they reattached it, but her efforts left her breathless.
"Calm down, you'll hurt yourself!" Mo cautioned as the nurses and doctor crowded around the bed.
"M-my wing!"
"I'm so sorry Rainbow Dash, but it's gone. They never found it in the lake," Mo gravely informed her.
Rainbow just stared back at him, her mouth agape as silent tears trailed down her cheeks.
"You'll never fly again..."
Mo might've said something after that, but Rainbow Dash didn't hear them. All she heard was "never fly again" over and over echoing in her ears, louder and louder until it was a cacophony of despair. It wouldn't have mattered if she had heard them a million times. A billion times. It couldn't be true. She was Rainbow Dash! She wasn't just some pegasus. She was the best flier in all of Equestria! It was impossible for her not to be able to fly, and she wasn't going to lie there and take it!
"No!" Rainbow shouted as she angrily pawed at the cast covering up her right shoulder. "You're lying! It's there!" She desperately needed to tear through the cast and see it for herself. Her wing had to be there and it was just fine! "Get it off! Get it off!" she shouted with an amazing vigor for somepony in her condition.
Her desperate writhing caused her broken leg to clatter out of the traction holding it place. The bandages around her torso started to stain red as the injuries underneath were ripped open. Still, Rainbow's fervor did not dwindle. It was as if she felt no pain, but the truth was the pain and fear in her heart simply drowned out the protests of her body.
The doctors and nurses jumped on Rainbow in an attempt to subdue her and prevent her from injuring herself any further. The cyan pony continued to struggle up until a syringe plunged into her IV tubing. As soon as the plunger was pressed in, Dash's struggling ceased as her magenta eyes closed.