//------------------------------// // Wave of Realization. // Story: Building Blocks // by BirdyTheEarthPony //------------------------------// Chapter One Wave of Realization : Was I dead? Did I get knocked out and killed by a noxious gas? Did a nuclear impact take me by surprise? But soon sound resonated through my entire head, I had no idea what had happened and I had no clue where I should start piecing things together. Everyone that I knew was gone as far as I could tell and I had no idea what had happened. Let’s think……I was at school, then suddenly I was the only one there and I kept hearing these…..’Voices’. But no one was there? I definitely heard voices though. I tried to shake my head in confusion but was met with a stabbing soreness that hindered my movement greatly. I wasn’t dead, but I wasn’t in much better shape than dead. I tried to peel my eyes open, excruciatingly enough, they opened. Blinding light filled my vision. It made my head throb and my nerves shriek in horror. My eyes snapped shut to seal in what darkness it could. I thought to myself, “Should I even open them again? What if there is nothing, and I am in a barren wasteland of a place? Oh well, now’s not the time to keep secrets I guess…..” I tried again, this time my eyes opening gradually, the pain not nearly as bad. The blinding white light that had been there had subsided and I was now met with a warm glow. Everything was blurry but I could see outlines, a brown short one, a fuzzy blue one, white or light brown walls, and it looked like I was in a bed. Ok good, I was in a hospital….but what for? Maybe I had a slight panic attack and my mind went blank for a few minutes, no biggie. Ill be home in no time! I opened my mouth to call for a nurse or someone, but was met with a painful rasp that barely escaped my throat. Well that’s not ideal. Why couldn’t I speak? Was I paralyzed? Oh god, I had to be, I hadn’t tried to move my legs or arms and I could barely move my neck! No no no no no no! I couldn’t be paralyzed! My entire life had been built around my athletic ability! I could jump the highest, run the fastest, lift the most, and I was the biggest! Frantically I tried to move my arm, then my legs. To my great relief they moved slightly, in great pain none the less, but movement was improvement. Nothing to weird about that but…..something was off. I felt…different. I couldn’t feel any fingers or toes, but it didn’t feel like they were missing. My vision having cleared, I decided to eye my arm, but something caught me before that. My nose or the very tip of my face at least was longer, and light brown? What is this? Vertigo maybe? No, this was different; I could feel that it was longer somehow. I moved to my arm slower that I thought eyes could move. Craning my neck, I saw something horrific. A single, long, very slender, brown coated limb met my gaze instead of my long, finger-y arm. What had done this to me? Was I part of an experiment or something sinister? I quickly examined the rest of my limbs but was met with the same sight. Not my strongly built legs or arms, just these slender, weak looking brown stump things. I could bend them but what was the point? My thoughts had to be cut short as I heard a tapping walk coming down, what sounded like a laminate hallway. It sounded like a pair of heels but there were multiple clicks. Maybe just two people in heels in a hospital, not to strange. Wait a second, yes it was! No one wore heels into a hospital, unless they were crazy! The two pair of heels stopped outside the door directly across from me. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice say, “Let’s see if the patient has improved any……” I expected a response but there was none. Maybe the other lady was a beginning nurse and just didn’t want to interrupt or something. Whatever the case I snapped my eyes shut, that voice had been the ghost voice from earlier. What the hell was going on here…….. The door slowly creaked open and I heard the two people walk in. They got right next to my bed and hovered there for a few seconds before turning to walk out. Now was my chance, I could get a glimpse of these two before they leave without them seeing me. I opened my eyes and gasped. Instead of a set of nurses in heels I saw a lonely…..nurse? It wasn’t two people, but it was a single…..thing. It had 4 legs that looked a lot like mine, although not emaciated and feeble. The hair was pink and smooth looking, tied in the back with a bun. It had a tail like a horse almost, but it was pink just like her hair. Right on her flank there was a red cross, just like the one on her nurse hat. She turned around quickly looking in my direction. I threw my eyes shut and closed them tightly, but I was not quick enough. She…or it…had seen me stir, and within seconds was by my bedside. “Are you okay? I saw you look at me! I can’t believe you’re actually up! You probably don’t understand me even; you’ve just been here so long….” I felt one of her arm slinky things get dangerously close to my face. My eyes flew open and I moved my head away from her arm. She drew it back immediately, gasping “Oh you are up!” I got a closer look at her face; it looked like a horse but smaller. Like a pony? This nurse was a pony that talked? My definite look of horror was replaced by obvious curiosity, as she extended her arm back towards me. Her skin….err, coat I mean, was completely white, and she had big blue, non threatening eyes. If I was going to be killed I guessed, this pony wasn’t going to be the one to do it. She asked curiously, “C-Can you understand me even?” I nodded my head slowly, trying to avoid the sharp pains from earlier. “WHAT?!” the shrewd change of volume hurt my ears and I recoiled a bit. “No way can you understand me you’ve been in a coma for so long!” My face quickly contorted into a look of surprise and dismay, a coma? I tried to talk but only a rasp came out yet again. “Oh you’ve never talked before have you; I bet your vocal cords are so dry! Ill be right back!” The nurse pony rushed out of the room in amazing haste to retrieve something I assumed. I thought to myself, a coma? Never talked before? This was ridiculous, I can talk; and I had before, as for the coma, how long had I been out?! Just as soon as I began to think these things, the white nurse pony burst through the door and was at my bedside. She shoved a vial in my through my lips and emptied the contents into my mouth. I was surprised and confused, I just had a strange blue liquid thrown down me and it felt so weird. It took a lot longer to travel down my throat than previous things. I looked to the nurse pony as she eyed me eagerly, waiting for a reaction I bet. She got one all right; as I threw my head to the side of the bed she wasn’t on and vomited. The whole contents of my stomach were spilled on to the floor, a mixture of brown goo and, brown goo. I muttered a quiet word of apology, “S-sorry” She paid no mind to my upheaval and focused on me, sparing me no remorse as she peppered me with questions about how I felt. All I could manage to say to this was bad and she seemed unimpressed by these answers. Then she asked one that I actually cared to answer, “What- I mean how you can understand me? You have never spoken or heard anyone talk……” In a panic my eyes widened, “Never?” I choked out, “But I had always…talked…I thought…..” The nurse suddenly got a look of dread and looked sadly at me, “Hun you’ve never even been awake……You have been in a coma since birth.” It was my turn to be surprised, “What!? No! I have been alive and well up until yesterday! What? How? Tell me who you are! Where am i? Why are you trying to trick me?” my voice had finally become almost fully functional but it still exerted my body physically. I was out of breath and my bed had been peppered with a light mist of blood, overuse of the tongue no doubt; if the nurse was right that is. She sighed a deep sigh, “You poor thing, calm down please…. Ill tell you all I can, just listen please, don’t freak out.” I chuckled, surprisingly enough, "Yea a coma, no biggie, I'm fine....." I scoffed. She sighed, “You again, have been in a coma since birth. We don’t know how or why a pony like yourself was born so healthy, but in a state of comatose. I am Nurse Redheart, and I have been watching over you since the day you came to us. Now you, you are in the Ponyville Hospital and I wish I was tricking you.” “Wait did you say, pony…..like me? What am I? A pony like you?” My voice was weak and was cracking as I was close to tears. I had been in a coma my entire life? And I had been a pony…… All that I had done, the identity I struggled to build, my athletic prowess, my parents, friends……girlfriend…… It was all fake?! All of it? My life was one big damned imagination! Nurse Redheart cleared her throat, “Well yes, you are what we call an ‘Earth Pony’, like me! They can’t use magic like unicorns or fly like pegasi but they have their own unique….” I cut her short with a scream of rage; she seemed to take several steps back from me, obviously scared. “A-are you alright?” I sighed, tears running down my face. “My entire life has been a lie. An imagination, all of my thoughts, dreams, memories, all gone.” Nurse Redheart dropped her head, “I’m so sorry, and I know it doesn’t help but, I really do feel terrible that you had to hear this the day you woke up…” I couldn’t respond at all. I just sat there and wept. I wept for all that I had lost, all that I had once had. Nurse Redheart took the hint and left me alone to my thoughts; which was a blessing. I needed to cry every tear I had.