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// It Hurts... 
// Story: Eyes 
// by The Crazy One 
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I can't hear. I can't see. I can just barely feel pain all over my body- a dull, throbbing pain. I taste blood. Something smells like dirt and antibacterial wipes. As hearing slowly returns, I can just make out the voice of our school nurse.

"...Hello? This is the nurse at Canterlot Middle School. Is this the mother of Derpy Hooves? Yes. This is about your daughter. She was found unconscious in the hallway. There are foot-shaped marks all over her, and we think she was trampled. She is not waking up, and I think she may have broken some bones. She's also bleeding. We've called an ambulance, and they'll be taking her to the hospital. I believe that she will be fine, but we need to bring her to a hospital." There's a long pause. "Yes. I'll meet you in the waiting room. Goodbye." I hear sirens now, and then I black out.





There is something stuck to my arm, and I'm not wearing my normal short jeans, and my loose t-shirt has been replaced with an even looser paper thin gown of some sort. I feel like I'm being watched, monitored somehow. There's a strong scent of some sort of antibacterial spray and medicine. It smells like the flu shot places that show up everywhere in fall, only cleaner. I feel a dull throb in my head. I force my eyes open, only to be greeted by a swirl of white and off-white, as well as a bit of gray. I blink, but one of my eyes feels strange, like it's not moving. I just close that eye, my right eye, and look around using the other. I'm in a hospital room, only I'm the one in the bed. My vision is still blurry, but I can make out that my right leg is in a gray cast and suspended above the bed. There's a nurse on the other side of the room straightening a tilted picture.

"What's goin' on..?" I force myself to say. Suddenly, it all comes back to me. A push, me falling, hitting the ground, nose bleeding, mouth hurting, the taste of blood, feet, thunder, pain... "What did they do to me? Am I badly hurt?" I feel adrenaline rush through my body. "Am I going to die?!?"

The nurse laughs. "No, of course not! You were found unconscious in a hallway at school. We think you were trampled. You should make a recovery. You've only been unconscious for 23 hours, which is an amazingly short amount of time for someone who's been through so much. You were expected to be out at least another day. Do you feel well enough to eat?"

I nod shakily.

"Great!" The nurse brings me a tray with a juice box and a muffin. "It's a very small amount of food, but we don't want to make you sick on top of your injuries." She helps me sit up a bit. "When you finish eating, there are a few people who'd like to see you."

I smile at her. "What's your name?" I ask, grabbing my muffin. Mm... Blueberry. I've always loved blueberry muffins. My friends don't really. As I take the first bite, I remember my disastrous attempt at teaching Time Turner to cook. Those were most certainly not muffins.

"Well... just call me Nurse Flutter." The nurse smiles. Then again, she always smiles. I don't look at her eyes. I've learned, by now, that it hurts.

As I finish eating, there's a knock on the door. A stallion's voice says, "Her parents would like to see her?"

Nurse Flutter calls to them, "You can come in in a moment!" Turning towards me, she says, "Hurry up, now, so you can see your parents!"

I take the last sip of my juice and set the tray aside. Nurse Flutter opens the door to let my parents in. Our greeting was basically the stereotypical 3rd grader in hospital sees parents thing.

My mother kept looking at my right eye. "Why have you closed one of your eyes, Derpy?"

"Oh, that? Well, it was hurting a bit, so... I just closed it.

"Oh." My mother was silent after that. When they left, nothing exciting had really happened. A few of my friends greeted me. Fluttershy, Time Turner, and a girl I don't really know named Rainbow Dash.

The meeting with Rainbow Dash was almost interesting. The 4th grade runner had visited my teacher a few times, so we almost knew each other, in that strange way children seem to know other children without really knowing them. Apparently she was the one to find me in the hallway near the back or the building, and she and Applejack, another 4th grader, got me to the nurse.

"You looked so horrible... But now you look much better!!! We made you cards!" The girl hands me a stack of folded papers with various drawings and messages on the front. I take the cards and set them on the table next to my bed.

"Thank you!!! I would look at them now, but my visions kinda blurry." I laugh a bit, pushing my light bangs away from my eye.

Rainbow tilts her head to the side. "Why do you have your eye closed?"

"Oh, it was bothering me. That's all."

"Okay! Seeya later!" She waves, and she and her parents left. For some reason, the brief meeting felt... Important. Like I needed to remember it, or I might not last very long. I don't know, feelings can be silly.

But that feeling was exactly right. I wouldn't have lasted long if I didn't meet her and her friends. That's just how life can be sometimes.