I didn’t pass out, okay?
It was just…a momentary break to check my eyelids for light leaks. Yeah.
When I woke up ̶ er, finished my check up, I was in a hospital bed, the soft beeping of my heart monitor keeping me company. I could already taste the déjà vu. Maybe I got lucky this time and the episode lasted less than an hour. I looked down to see a pair of forelegs upon a barrel covered in dull turquoise blue fur. Apparently not. I took a couple deep breaths. Dad was no longer around to make sure I wouldn’t get into trouble. I was on my own, with a disease that no one, save a couple inquisitive doctors a couple states over, knew about. Wait. How badly did my deluded mind want to screw me over?
I threw off my covers in a panic, completely disregarding the breakfast tray that had been carefully laid on my bed to not wake me up. It wasn’t there. No, no, no, NO, NO, NO! Why did you do this to me, brain?! My p ̶ oh wait, there it is. Completely forgot humans are the oddballs in the animal world concerning genitals, with it, well, hanging loose and all. Or maybe my condition ‘translated’ me wearing clothes. Convenient.
I heard someone clearing their throat, and I whipped my head towards the door, letting the covers drop over me. The doctor who looked like a pony looked at me with an eyebrow raised. I smiled sheepishly. He turned to look at the mess of oats ‘n OJ on the wall facing my bed.
“Not a fan of breakfast?” He asked.
“Nah, sorry doctor.” I muttered, looking away in embarrassment. “I just thought I lost…something.”
“Ah.”
The ‘Ah’ of a guy who knows what another was doing but chose to ignore it. Nice to see the guy rules still exist in this hallucination.
“So…” he began, “as per routine, I’m going to need to ask you a few questions.”
A doctor, wearing a white coat and a toupee, entered the room. His dull eyes glanced over my bedridden body. “Yeah, m’kay,” he started in a monotonous voice, “I’m going to need to ask you a few question, m’kay?”
I sighed, the scene all too familiar.
“Let’s get this over with, doctor.”
<><><>
The entity surges through the hospital, taking care to not mess with the precise medical equipment. Invisible to the naked eye, but still capable of slightly affecting electronics. Keeping to the ceiling, its essence slithers about like an upside-down snake. The cardiovascular wing, the burns wing, awwww, the newborns wing! Wait. The entity found it, the X-ray wing! It could now determine what happened during that odd incursion. Although it has no physical body, it still shudders in anticipation. It would finally know, after all this time! It passes sheet by sheet, name by name, until it finally finds it. A full body scan for a pegasus presumed to have crashed into the library. No fractures, no contusions, no misplaced bones or viscera…the transformation the Veil made was flawless. Well, almost. To the very astute doctors, the fine white specks along the spine would be nothing more than an error in the machine. But the entity is sure that no doctor had noticed the needlepoint-sized white dots along his spine. The consciousness streams out of the room. The x-rays gave it more insight on what it suspects. It is no longer necessary to observe the young man, now a young stallion. But it will do it nonetheless.
Because he interests it.
<><><>
“So, Mr…Windell Green” the doctor continued, “All I need now is your medical history.”
“Mr. Green, I have good news and bad news, m’kay?” Dr. Lemont said as he checked my chart.
“Bad news first, doctor.” I asked. Both he and my father, Amadeus Green looked at me in surprise. Well, dad did, but Lemont just looked at me with one eyebrow raised slightly more than the other.
“You ruined the joke.” He said monotonously “You were supposed to ask for the good news first, to which I would have answered ‘Good news is you’re going to have a disease named after you.’” Amadeus’ eyes flared in anger, and he got up from his chair by my bedside.
“You think this is-” I grabbed his forearm, and he looked into my somber hazel eyes. I shook my head. I loved my father dearly, he had taken care of the both of us after mom died, but sometimes he was overprotective of me. He sat back down.
“What do you mean?” I asked, voice almost stuttering.
“I mean you’re lucky you’re alive, m’kay.” Lemont answered, voice constant. He took out a manila folder and scanned the contents. “According to your mother’s records, she worked in a very radioactive line of work. And it appears she only took maternity leave during the six months preceding your birth.”
“The pregnancy test was faulty…” my father grumbled.
“Anywho…” the doctor carried on “It appears to have affected your genetic sequence somewhat. Which has had a minimal effect on you, such as your lock of white hair, until the later stages of puberty.”
“But I’m eighteen,” I interrupted. “Shouldn’t there have been signs at around thirteen?”
“Not necessarily” he answered, “It seems that the effects were brought on by the final stages of maturation brought about by your pituitary gland. And that is why it took so long for there to be such an…interesting effect on your brain. I would say the result is impossible, but since the evidence is right here, I guess it’s just very improbable.”
A deep breath. “Is it terminal?” Amadeus cringed.
“We don’t know enough about the brain to get an answer, m’kay. This is unprecedented. Not some major change, but a minute one's in your, erm, ‘circuitry’, and enough to cause your…episodes.” I stared dejectedly to the foot of my bed.
“If I may make a suggestion?” Lemont asked, interrupting my brooding, “If you donate your brain to science, posthumously of course, we are bound to make large medical advancements in neurology.”
Father rose up, face red in rage. “Already going for-“
“Sure, go ahead and count me as a donor.” I interrupted. Dad whipped around.
“But Windell…why?”
“Dad, if there are any others who come across a similar disease, then that knowledge will help them. I may die in a month, or I may die in a couple of decades, or I may even die a century from now. But if I die and we don’t learn anything, then we’ll be hurting others. I don’t mind them picking my brain,” I chuckled “as long as it helps others who are going through the same things I went through. Real or unreal.”
“M’kay…I’ll just mark you down as ‘donor’.” The doctor scribbled on my file. “As for symptoms….”
“Mr. Green? Windell Green?”
I shook my head, seeing my messy pitch-black mane and that lock of white that stuck with me through the hallucination.
“Sorry. I got lost in thought there. So, medical history, right?”
“Correct,” the pony affirmed.
I scooted nervously in my bed. “I have a very rare genetic disease called ‘Green Neurological Disorder’”
The tan stallion cocked his head. “And I assume that you share a name with this disease is not a coincidence?”
I nodded. “I am actually the only one recorded to have it.” I chuckled mirthlessly. “Doctors said it developed in the womb, while my mom was working with stuff she shouldn’t have.”
“Oh.” The doctor’s demeanor fell, and his ears splayed back. “I’m sorry…and your mother?”
“Wasn’t so lucky. And she was the one who brought home the most revenue, so my dad really had to struggle to get enough for the two of us. He really worried too much for me, and he…passed on a year back.” I avoided eye contact. Tears were already stinging my eyes.
The stallion cleared his throat.
“And…the symptoms of your disease?” his voice cracked slightly. I guess he was new on the job. I closed my eyes in thought.
“Hallucinations, sleepwalking, dream-reality disassociation, bouts of apathy, bouts of…psychopathy, all of which happen in ‘episodes’ for indeterminate amounts of time. I’ve also been diagnosed with paranoia and a mild case of agoraphobia, but they may be unrelated.”
The doctor looked at me funny, and stepped back a bit nervously.
“And are you aware of when you have these…episodes?” He asked with an anxious smile.
“The first one occurred before I was aware I had the disorder. I am currently experiencing the second one.” I answered nonchalantly. My doctor scuttled back skittishly. “But it appears I am lucid enough to be aware of it, so it's likely I’m going to seclude myself until it blows over.”
He inched back to me slowly. “How do you know what you’re seeing isn’t real? And how can you be aware of me?”
“It makes logical sense that what I’m seeing is impossible. As for one of my disease’s quirks, it ‘translates’ things for me. Those I see will change in my mind to fit in my delusion, and their words slightly altered to correspond to my reality, or dangers like a runaway train would appear to me as other dangers, like a giant, carnivorous boar. Not logical, yet my subconscious recognizes dangers as detrimental to my well-being.”
“Wow…” the pony breathed. He blinked a couple times and added “Well, we should look over your X-rays and update or create your medical records, but you should be out by noon.” As he shuffled out of the room, I began to lose myself in thought.
I couldn’t get home in this state, and I couldn’t stay here. I could probably make a guess where home is, but I’ve been known to wander for miles during my previous episode. My father even found me a whole state over once. No, I couldn’t even figure out which way to go, and I had to stay out of town to avoid whatever shenanigans my mind would cook up. Wouldn’t want to freak out the populace. Worst part was, my delusion seemed to follow along the lines of a show I watched once. I didn’t particularly care for the fandom of said show, and truth be told, I only watched it because I was on a ‘story binge’, or when I basically read everything and anything I could get my hands on, and when I ran out of literature, movies and shows fell to my voracious desire to know stories. My Little Pony, as it was called, was simply one of the casualties.
But here is where my advantage lay. There was still a library. Twilight lacked wings. And from what I could gather, she was new in Ponyville. Therefore, I had the advantage on my hallucination. I knew what dangers existed, and I assumed which people my subconscious wanted me to avoid. Namely a pink character that I would have to avoid like the plague. Social interaction in this state is a big no-no. And my mind was broken enough, I didn’t need it to try and recreate the impossibility of Pinkie Pie. Therefore, I had to find out where Ponyville ended so I wouldn’t be detected. So close enough to occasionally come for supplies, but in a place safe enough for a crazy person, and yet somewhere where people can’t stumble onto. Or somewhere they wouldn’t want to go to. Okay, I had an idea, but I would need a map. And I wanted to avoid the inquisitive sort, so the library was out of the question. For now. I was going to read those books. I wanted to see how far the delusion would go. I would also need a means of income, as well as shelter, seeing as my last psychotic episode felt as if it had lasted two years. In actuality, it had only lasted six months, and I had dreamed about three-fourths of it. That would have been a problem in this episode, had I not spent the last two years training myself to lucid dream during REM sleep. Hopefully. I could not discount the possibility of a nightmare. That thought gave me hope. This may end sooner than I think.
Shelter would be easy enough: I would build one. Well, it would be easier than what job I was sure fit within my ‘no socialization’ parameters in a pseudo-society full of sociable people. Hell, even small towns are more sociable, and I was stuck here, because I knew what to expect, and what to avoid. As for the house I would build, I would need money for lumber and some tools, but I could get started on the foundations once I got out. Then I could get a job. I doubted I would need a resume for this, but it would take some time to find my employer. Luckily for me, all I would have to do is follow six mares into a forest. But to know when my window is open I would need to see one of their houses. Again, a map would be necessary. And I would have to build a temporary shelter out of sticks and tarp. Hopefully the knowledge I gained in my first delusion would help me.
A half-hour later, I trotted (tripped) out of the hospital with a new medical record. As far as I knew, I had stumbled onto an airplane and ended up in another country. At least the nurses and doctors were giving me a break due to my condition. First stop: town hall. Wait. I stopped mid-stride and almost fell on my face, or muzzle, in the middle of the dirt road. Where was town hall? Well…seemed like a little social interaction was necessary.
And since people will judge me for seeing them as characters from a little girl’s show, I’ll be looked down upon, ostracized, run out of town, TORTURED, KILLED-STOP.
I took a few calming breaths. Paranoia will get me nowhere. Calm thought and self-control will. Just give everybody nicknames, and if asked, explain that I have a neurological condition that screws with my memory and messes up names. It wouldn’t be a lie. React, but don’t feel. I took a deep breath and approached the market. Specifically, a rose-maned mare with a cream colored coat attending a stand.
“Excuse me,” I spoke, as she turned from her roses to face me, “I’m passing through town, but I would like to know where town hall is, I need to see some documents.”
“Of course!” she chirruped. “Just follow the road that way,” she flung her hoof to my right “and the second right is Mane Street, which leads right to it!”
“Thank you.” I said sincerely, as I headed out that way. If this is the start of a long, painful, dream, I mused, it begins with some very polite locals. At least this phantasm is peaceful and cheery, unlike the other one. I shuddered. I may never recover, and I may never know if there were any more real victims.