I'm not honestly sure how long I stared at my reflection. Even after what must have been whole minutes of study, I couldn't believe any of it. Any action I took, the mirror reflected it flawlessly. If I breathed in, wherever the hell my lungs are would fall (because my lungs appear to be under me now). If I involuntarily flicked an ear, or my tail, the mirror would do that right as I did. I... I can't really express, in words, how bizarre it is to watch a reflection of something you know isn't you perfectly copy everything you do.
My entranced state ended rather quickly when I heard rapid hoofsteps coming from behind the door. I had to get back to the bed, fast!
I turned away from the mirror and started for the bed, and got just out of the bathroom before falling flat on my face. I need to learn to walk without needing to think about it, badly!
Through some divine intervention or something, I managed to get into the bed and put the covers over me like they were earlier before the hoofsteps stopped at the door.
"Out of my way, doctor!" A frantic voice yelled from behind the door.
"Sir, please, calm dow-" What-I-recognized-as-the-doctor's-voice said.
"I have to see her! I have to see if my wife is ok!" A lump formed in my throat right then. W-wife? He- he wasn't talking about m-me, was he? No, m-maybe it was the patient nearby. It had to be.
"Sir, please, your wife... sir... she may be experiencing some form of amnesia." There was a few moments of dead silence following the doctor's words. I could only imagine the horrified expression on the one dude's face.
"WHAAT?!?!?!" I had to wince at the volume of the guy's scream.
I can understand you being aghast, pal, but this is a hospital. Tone it down a bit.
"Sir... she doesn't appear to recall who she is."
I know perfectly well who I am! ... and I'm a guy, jacka- ... oh, right.
Again, there was a few moments of silence. There was literally a complete lack of sound for about five seconds. And there was me just sitting in a hospital bed, praying to that-guy-who-should-be-listening that they didn't walk in through that doo-
"The best I can recommend is that you should surround her with familiar things and faces for a while. It's usually a very short temporary thing and might last a few days. If she's still like this past then, call a therapist." Great. A therapist is the last thing I need. They'll get me utterly nowhere and gain me nothing but irritation. I don't think my situation can be solved by therapy, doc. Then again, I never told him... probably wouldn't believe me anyways, and would dismiss it as some form of disorder.
"I- I can still see her, right?"
"Like I said, she won't remember you, so please try not to be surprised when she doesn't. She's only just gotten past the physical recovery." Uh oh.
Right at that moment, what I presume to be the unfamiliar voice walked in through the door as it opened. He didn't look anything special, just your average ordinary background pony that served no real purpose in the show. Canary yellow coat, plum purple mane and tail, and I had yet to determine his eyes and Cutie Mark; he was moving too fast.
"D-Daisy?" He stammered, looking at me with a pleading hope.
All I could do really was stare at him. I didn't want to set him off by saying something he doesn't want me to say... but from the look that quickly came across his face, staring at him without saying a word wasn't helping him at all.
He walked closer, allowing me to determine his eye color, but still not his- why did I even want to know? I was staring at his butt in my search for that blasted Cutie Mark, and the fact that I was actually looking there purposefully was starting to weird me out. I mean, I know ponies are naked by default, sort of, but staring at someone's butt still didn't feel right. Moving on, his eyes were a red color, kind of like a strawberry.
He stopped right next to the bed, and laid a hoof on my left foreleg (the same side of the bed he approached me from), and proceeded to stare straight into my eyes, as if scanning my soul. It wasn't a feeling I enjoyed.
"D-Daisy? Daisy Heart?"
"I... I don't know who you are." I regretted having said that. Almost immediately he teared up. I, myself, felt incredibly terrible about all of it. I very well just wrecked this dude's life. I probably already destroyed whoever 'Daisy Heart' was. I was accidentally a murderer.
I mean, 'Daisy Heart' is probably dead, right? Died in whatever it was these ponies say she got in? Maybe I didn't kill her after all, and I just... took over since her body didn't have an occupant anymore. That... still felt wrong, though. I'm not complaining or anything, but I shouldn't even be alive right now... why am I here right now? I certainly don't recall buying anything from some weirdo merchant at Something-Con. I never went to one of those anyways.
"It's a temporary thing, sir. She'll have her memories back within the week." The doctor spoke up.
The on-the-verge-of-crying dude looked over at him. The fact that 'Daisy Heart' wouldn't remember anything for a while still hurt him. I still, honestly, felt bad for the guy. I didn't want this any more than he did.
"When you're ready to leave, head on out. But first, wait outside please so I can determine which kind of amnesia she has." Oh fuck.
With a sniff, the dude nodded and then left the room, the door being magically closed behind him by the doctor. It was then an uncomfortable silence filled the room, and that certainly wasn't helping me stay calm.
"Alright, so I'm just going to ask a few questions, Ms. Heart. Or would you prefer Daisy?" He got closer to the bed and stopped a few feet from it.
"Um... I-I really don't mind..." Quite frankly, I didn't. It wasn't my name.
"Ok, first questi-"
"Your second, actually." I interrupted.
He gave me an irritated stare before resuming. "As I was saying... do you remember even the slightest bit of anything?"
I stared at him and down at the floor several times in the next half minute. I knew exactly what had happened. I remembered everything, beginning as far back as I can remember... which was probably when I was four or five years old. The only problem... was he wouldn't believe a word I said.
"Doctor... I... you wouldn't... believe me... if I... told you." The reason I spoke not so fluently as usual was because... well, I was starting to be frustrated with how I sounded. I'm a guy, not some woman... I mean mare! The less I talked, the happier I was, because that way I didn't have to hear a voice that wasn't my own speak for me. Wouldn't you start getting at least a tiny bit ticked off after a while of that? I know I enjoyed my own voice far more than what I now had.
"Don't be afraid to speak your mind, Ms. Hear-"
"That's not my name." I growled.
The doctor almost looked a little surprised that I interrupted him so harshly, but then put his poker face back on. "If your name is not Daisy Heart, then what is it?"
I swallowed. He was hiding it, but behind that poker face of his I knew he thought I was crazy. To him, of course I'm 'Daisy Heart!' What more proof could he have other than what sat before him? But what was true on the outside was not so on the insi- actually, fuck, it was true on the inside, but it wasn't true in my head! Why did I have to open my big mouth?
"J-John. M-my name is John." I almost broke into a sweat saying that. Congratulations, myself, you just got yourself tossed in the looney bin!
Stop being irrational. Obviously they wouldn't do that because they think-
"Ma'am, you've developed Dissociative Amnesia." That.
"That fast of a diagnosis?" I couldn't help but ask.
The doctor sighed and he seemed to hang his head a little. "Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to be happening quite often, of late."
"Oh?" Ok, if I thought I cared about anything before, I cared a lot more now. Happening quite often? So... I wasn't the only one? ... did Tyler and the instructor end up here, like I did? Or... maybe there's more to it than that? Of course there is... why wouldn't there be?
"But hopefully your own problems end within the next few days, like most cases before the most recent ones have." With that, he turned towards the door, and opened it, revealing that one guy again.
"Alright, I'll have her ready to go in a little bit. Like I said, surround her with familiar ponies and belongings and she should regain her memories. If she continues like this beyond almost a week, call a therapist." Therapists will be called, it seems.
"Y-yes doctor. Th-thank you doctor."
"Nurse!" The doctor hollered down the hall. What, did everypony forget that this was-
... Hold on, what did I just think?
"Yes?" Responded a female voice.
"If you could get Ms. Heart ready to leave the hospital, that'd be great."
Hold up. If 'Daisy Heart' is married, why are they calling her 'Ms.?' Were they just so lazy that they decided to forget to say the extra 'is?' ... Why am I complaining? I'm not 'Daisy Heart', so it shouldn't be one of my concerns.
"Yes doctor." Following that, the doctor left, taking that one particularly upset stallion with him, and then in walked a mare I didn't recognize from anywhere. I probably could describe her color scheme right now but-
"Daisy? By Celestia, I haven't seen you in a long time." Uh oh.
"Um, yeah, er, long time no see?"
"No kidding! I'm terribly sorry to hear about the accident."
"Um, yeah, wasn't fun being in... do I know you?" Shit, there I go again.
The nurse stared at me with a blank expression for a good half minute or so, and I was worried I broke her for a little while there.
"We went to school together... you don't remember that? You don't remember being best-"
"Ahem, well, since you apparently haven't overheard the doctor's diagnosis, I apparently have 'dissociative amnesia.'" I particularly said those last two words with a bit of hate. I knew, for a fact, that was not at all what I had right now.
Once again, she stared at me for a good while before looking down at the floor and getting all sad-looking. "Oh. Well... I... I'm sorry I... I'll just... do my job then and... get you out of here..."
While she did what she had to do, I couldn't resist groaning and gently rubbing my temples (or at least where I think they were). I was going to be having a lot of encounters like this, wasn't I?