Beep…
I’m lying on the hot ground and my leg hurts really badly
Beep…
and there’s shouting and sharp bursts of metal on metal
Beep…
the sun is so hot and it’s getting hard to breathe
Beepbeep…
then I open my eyes and a pony is standing over me, a pony with glass sticking out of his eye and fur matted with his own blood
Beepbeepbeep…
and in front of my eyes he crumbles into dust until only his skeleton is left, and his eyeless skull grins at me from the desert sand
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep…
I open my mouth to try and scream but nothing comes out because of the sand, choking me and covering me and when my lungs are full my vision starts to go black…
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep…
My eyes snap open and the scream that I was unable to force through my teeth before now flows freely, a piercing sound that’s mixed with sobs of fear and pain. My limbs are heavy, so heavy that I can’t move them at all, and that’s just as well since my foreleg and shoulder are burning. Unable to turn my head, my eyes skitter around the room, trying to deduce where the hay I am.
Blank white walls and a white ceiling tell me nothing, really. At the very edge of my vision is a glint of gray that might be a steel table. I’m lying on something hard and smooth, but my head is cushioned. That’s all I get before I hear a door burst open near me.
“Was that him?”
“I hope not, he wasn’t supposed to wake up for three hours!” The two voices are rushed, and the conversation reaches me only seconds before the sources do. A dark green stallion and a white mare come into view, screeching to a stop at my side. My eyes flick to them, and for the first time in a long time I feel relieved not to be alone. The stallion swears, spinning on his hooves and galloping away, white coat flapping in his stead. The mare checks a machine next to me and pulls a penlight from her lab coat, shining it briefly into my eyes. I try to speak, but all that comes out is a moan of pain. Her eyes, steely and professional, soften for a moment, and she runs a hoof through my sweat-soaked mane. Then the green stallion bursts through the door again, holding a syringe in his teeth. Handing it to the mare, he nods curtly to my foreleg. Through the throbbing of my shoulder, the small prick of the needle is lost; I’m unable to prepare myself against the sudden sleepiness that crashes over me and pushes me deep below the surface of consciousness.
The waves push me so deep that I bypass my haunting memories and the realm of dreams. As I sink they pass me like bubbles, moving so swiftly that I only catch small bits from them. Dreams of monsters and blood mix with those of heroes and peace, and in all honesty I don’t know which ones are more appealing to me. Strange creatures drift on the corners of my vision, and my reflexes are too slow to track them before they flee. As the number of bubbles decrease, the light fades, leaving me in the darkness with no sound save my breathing. I try to shut my eyes, but I can’t; it takes a few minutes (or hours, or days—time has lost meaning) of muddled confusion before I come to the conclusion that they must already be shut.
Eventually my back finds solid ground, and my forelegs soon do the same. The contact causes my shoulder to ache, as it did when… when… I can’t remember the last time it ached. I can’t remember much of anything, really, but the added burning of my foreleg sharpens my mind. Not enough to remember, as it turns out, but enough so that I can crack open an eyelid (having to repeatedly remind myself that it was closed in the first place).
Green and orange and white blurs bob in front of a scathingly bright light. I shut my eyes again, not wanting to cause a headache, but I can’t block the noises filtering down through the placid waters of sleep from reaching me.
…gave him anesthesia, enough to put him to sleep for…
The voice is surprisingly clear, but faint. Too faint for me to determine if it’s male or female.
…did a good job…
I’m not sure if the voice is the same as before.
…wake him up? Adrenaline should do the trick…
Wake him up? Is he me?
Yeah, but not too quickly… slowly…
This voice becomes clearer as he speaks (definitely a stallion), and the pain in my shoulder becomes more acute. It’s only for a moment, though, and then it fades to a dull throb. The light past my eyelids grows less bright, and the blobs of color become ponies looking down at me with worried stares. The white mare, the one who brushed back my mane, smiles encouragingly at me, while the orange and green stallions just look relieved.
“Do you know who you are?” The orange stallion rasps, his purple eyes sparkling with intelligence and a hint of concern. It takes me a minute to process the question, and when I try to speak my tongue feels swollen.
“I’m… Ghost. Ghost Anlace.” My voice sounds like orange stallion’s, raspy and scratchy.
“Ghost Anlace, huh? Okay, Mr. Anlace, do you know where you are?” The orange pony continues with the questions, motioning for the white mare and green stallion to leave. I turn my head to the side (I can move now—I wonder what the problem was before) and watch them trot out of a sliding glass door connecting my room to whatever lies beyond.
Turning back to the orange pony, I swallow hard, trying not to cough from the dryness of my throat. He seems to understand, though, and brings over a glass of water, pouring a small stream into my mouth when I nod. The cool wetness of the liquid soothes my tongue, and when I go to speak I find it much, much easier.
“I don’t… where am I?” I try to sit up, but a firm hoof on my shoulder (the uninjured one) keeps me down.
“Don’t move or you’ll tear the stiches. You’re in the Ponyville Hospital, Mr. Anlace. I’m Corpsman Sawbones. Do you remember what caused the incident leading to your admission here?”
I blink slowly, trying to dredge any memories from before here out of the mire that is my mind. “A little. It was… dark. There were two creatures, and one of them had a horn. They looked like ponies, but…” An image flashes before my eyes of the first creature, and how the moonlight had shone through its hooves and reflected off its body. “The first one had holes in its hooves. It… its body reflected light, like a bug, and its horn was crooked. The second one, the one that attacked me, had fangs, but I didn’t get too close a look for anything else.”
The orange pony is pale, and he takes a deep breath before murmuring, “Are you sure that the creatures had holes in their hooves? Could it have been a trick of the light?”
I try to shake my head, but a whip of pain hits my back, making me wince. “No, I’m sure. How badly am I hurt?”
The stallion produces a chart from seemingly nowhere and looks it over, grimacing slightly as he reads. “Two deep puncture marks with shallow lacerations located on the right shoulder, one broken fetlock, one hoof-shaped bruise to the side of the face, and two hoof-shaped bruises to the ribs. And if you’re wondering, the only reason you aren’t moaning in pain right now is because we pumped you full of painkillers.”
I wince. I expected it to be bad, but not that bad. Corpsman, still flipping through the chart, asks suddenly, “You’re ex-military, right? The fetlock injury gave you away. The other one, I mean. The break is fine, it’ll heal in a few months, but that other one… shrapnel, right?”
I nod, gritting my teeth against the stab of pain that hits my spine when I do so. “Yes. How did you know? Are small town doctors trained in that kind of thing?” My question is a serious one, and to his credit Corpsman doesn’t laugh.
“I was a medic, stationed in Zebrabwe a couple of years ago. We got a lot of injuries involving shrapnel, but yours is the first I’ve seen with part of the fetlock itself missing.”
We are interrupted by the white mare, who sticks her head into the room and says, “Bones, the patient’s next of kin are here.”
Wait. Next of kin?
Corpsman nods and rasps, “Yeah. Let them in. If that’s okay with you, Mr. Anlace.”
I’m curious as to who they call ‘next of kin’, so I make an affirmative noise in the back of my throat. The mare disappears for a few seconds before ushering in no other than Cinder and Ember.
Cinder, who has the same cocky grin on her face as she did the first time I met her, takes one look at me and stops dead in the doorway, smile gone. Without another word, she turns and walks away, and my curiosity at this abnormal behavior skyrockets when Ember doesn’t go after her. Instead, she walks up to me and pulls up a chair from somewhere beyond my range of vision.
“How are you, Ghost? You look like you've been through a war.” Ember tries, in vain, to act blasé about Cinder’s sudden exit, but I see through her act.
“Why did Cinder leave, Ember? And—” –here, I lower my voice so that Corpsman, who has started out of the room, can’t hear— “—why are you two posing as my next of kin?”
Ember sighs, a heavy sigh that wipes all traces of joviality off of her face. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that. The first one, I mean. Cinder, she… doesn’t have a good reputation with hospitals, and when she saw you, I guess it… brought back old memories. That’s all I can tell you, Ghost, because I swore to her that I would never, ever tell anyone what she told me.
“As to why we posed as your next of kin, Cinder answered the door when the runner from the hospital knocked. When he asked her if she was kin to one Ghost Anlace, she said yes, and I didn’t really want to explain to the ponies here that she was lying so that we—SHE—could poke around in your business. Which is what she was trying to do, make no mistake.”
Even though Ember tries to distract me, I still press on the Cinder issue. “Why does Cinder have an issue with hospitals?” Ember looks at me with a warning glare, and shakes her head once.
“Ghost. I promised Cinder I wouldn’t say anything. To anyone. Ever. So drop it. Shouldn’t you be more worries about your injuries than fussing over Cinder?”
I’m about to respond when the sliding glass door opens again, and this time the being that steps in makes me clamp my mouth shut and almost leap off of the table I’m resting on, broken fetlock and all.
“I would greet you both, but time I cannot waste. Is this the room of Ghost Anlace?”