My heart thumped in my ears as I jolted into a new state of awareness, reeling out of a silent reverie. I beheld the solitary sight in front of me—my purple hoof in the quill drawer of my library. Even though the library was empty and silent, my blood rushed and pounded as I entered a state of panic. I did not remember walking here, or anything up to this point, truly. The realization that I had no recollection whatsoever of any events leading to this situation compounded with the sheer void of the unknown, leading a true well of terror to spring forth from the deep reservoirs of dread in my body. A powerful shudder traveled down the length of my spine, and though the early spring morning was frigid, the weather was most certainly not the cause of my quaking.
Slowly, I pulled my hoof from the drawer. Taking a deep breath to steel my nerves, I decided that any hoof in the quill drawer was a hoof with purpose. The quill lifted dutifully as I influenced it with my magic, but it was accompanied by a dull and throbbing pain which slowly traversed up my horn. The severity of the pain began to increase exponentially, thudding with the beat of my heart until my vision swam and bile crawled up my throat. Wincing, I halted the flow of magic, causing the pain to ebb away as the quill fell onto its weighted tip.
Reflexively, I reached up to my horn with a hoof to determine the source of the nauseating, mind-consuming pain. My hoof traveled carefully to the top of my horn, and worked down slowly towards the base (as one does when checking for a damaged horn). My cautious prodding revealing no damage, I searched around the base of the horn, and a slight brush revealed a large lump behind it. A crusty material was layered on top of it, and even my accidental prod caused it to flare with electric pain. As I returned the hoof to my line of sight, even that electric agony could not prevent me from realizing the nature of the sticky crust that had tagged along with my hoof. The metallic stench of my own scabbed blood on my hoof made wafted into my nose, revolting me. My swirling and inconsistent thoughts centered themselves around the confusion and nausea, almost so that vomiting sounded appealing. I took another, slow, deep breath as I set my hoof down. As uncertain as I was, I was still plenty intelligent to know that making a deposit of my dinner to the Equestrian National Bank of Twilight's Floor was not the best course of action.
The main question in my mind was 'What am I doing here?' There were other questions, too. They rolled through my head like a dense tropical storm, and each of them availed no answer. The last thing that I could remember was that Rainbow Dash was spending the night—at some point during that event, my recollection simply ceased to be.
I looked about, knowing that surely there must be a clue somewhere. Dim morning light made it difficult to see, a single candle slightly alleviated that issue. It stood on a small table in the center of the room that was nominally the reference section. One of the books was open, though—it was the Royal Equestrian Twenty-Four Character Script Dictionary. A couple steps towards it allowed me to read it. I suppressed the annoyance that began to bubble when I saw writing in the dictionary—in my library of all places. I decided that I had greater priorities at this time than being angry at a book-vandal, though, and examined the writing. It was really only one word that was written, an exclamation of "Here!" with an arrow pointed at an underlined entry.
Anterograde: adj. Effective immediately after a traumatic event such as external shock.
Why is that word important, though? Normally the term anterograde is associated with... amnesia.
"Of course!" I exclaimed. "Anterograde amnesia as a dysfunction of the hippocampus causes the loss of ability to form memories!"
I frowned. If my assumption was correct, then even in the best of cases I could only count on my memories lasting ten minutes. That wasn't very long, and it was only best case. In reality, I would forget about most things very shortly after I did them. I needed to do something, and now, before I forgot what I was doing. I clearly had been making progress and trying to do something at some point before—the underlined entry attested to that. There was something more I needed to be doing, and I had minutes to work it out before my chains of thought rattled to a sluggish halt.
"Spike?" I hoped that his cheerful voice would respond then, ringing through the wooden rooms of my library like a purple and scaly messiah, but my cry garnered no reply aside from a stern silence.
Of course—Spike wasn't here. I actually knew that, assuming it was still the same day that I was injured. This new knowledge was helpful objectively, but it meant that I needed to find a way to more quickly remind myself that I had amnesia, and then get myself to a safe place as soon as possible. I was in no condition to be roaming about on my own, and probably should be in a hospital. The urgency of the situation compounding upon my natural anxiety, and I quickly began surveying the room. I noted a quill on the floor. A-ha! I must have been planning to write something! I was about to grasp it with my magic, when the last wisps of a fading memory reminded me that I had a lump behind my horn—using magic to fetch it would be a bad idea. I retrieved it with my hoof.
I took a second to walk over to the dictionary and remind myself what was written there. "Anterograde." Yes, it is amnesia, isn't it? I had quite nearly forgotten.
I glanced around again. This time, my desk across from the table caught my eye. It was burdened with an impressive sheaf of papyrus, one page separate from the rest, as well as a pot of ink and a large saddlebag. The bag, I recognized immediately. My old mystery-solving bag! My brother and mother were together quite fond of setting puzzles for me when I was young, and this gargantuan saddlebag was my constant companion during those times. I quickly trotted over and retrieved it. It would be perfect for keeping notes and trinkets in, so that I could later decry what happened this morning. I immediately placed it upon my back, lime-green straps sliding into a tight but manageable fit.
I then went to examine the papers on my desk. There was only one with writing on it, separated from the rest. The paper bore the letter 'A' in an odd style. It looked like my hornwriting, but... something was off. I put it in my mystery bag, just in case.
Why would I have written the letter "A?" I think back, trying to remember what I might have been doing. Even the memory of my recent discovery of my amnesia bore the fog of a memory years old, not one of several minutes. I squinting, I attempt to apply the memory. A... that could only have been "Anterograde." I must have been planning to move—that dictionary would be cumbersome to carry. I needed to go to the hospital, so that movement was still necessary. Glancing around for a quill, I spied one and took it to a new sheet of papyrus.
Anterograde Amnesia
*see hospital NO MAGIC
It was sloppy, but it was what I had. I impaled the note on my horn, so that I wouldn't lose it and it would always be nearby to read—even more sloppy, but once again, it was all I had. Swiftly, I set off down the stairs and out the front door. I had to get to the hospital, right away!