//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Octavia // by Fibroidfluffy //------------------------------// Chapter 4 The next morning when Vinyl awoke she got up, made her lunch, and ran as fast as she could to the hospital. She had never run that fast before, but she was determined to know if Octavia was still alive. As she got there, she looked at the clock inside to make sure she was not going school. She saw that she was really early, and that school didn’t start for another two hours. As she walked to the elevator she noticed that she forgot her bag at home. “Ugh, of all things.” She facehoofed and pressed the button to call the elevator. As the elevator doors opened she heard someone yelling. “Wait! Hold that door!” Vinyl looked up to see Doctor Hooves running at her in a hurry. She looked at him with confusion. She didn't realize that it was him until he dove right into the elevator. “Oh, hey there Doctor Hooves, how's it going?” Vinyl asked while helping him up. “I'm quite fine, but this job of mine is killing me.” He told her as he fixed himself up. “How? I mean you like have to coolest job ever and you get to boss other ponies around. Who wouldn’t want that job?” Vinyl said as she gave Doctor Hooves a smile. “Wait, how in Equestria do you know that?” He asked Vinyl looking shocked. “Duh, I pass by your office every day to visit my friend Octavia.” Vinyl said as the elevator doors opened to reveal that Vinyl was telling the truth. “Oh, my apologies, I hadn’t realized that.” He said as he put a hoof to his cheek and shook his head. Vinyl laughed at the stressed and confused Doctor and then she ran off to see Octavia. When she got closer, she noticed that Octavia's room was dark, her heart sank and dark thoughts ran though her head. “Oh man, oh man, oh man.” Vinyl cried out as she stopped to face the dark room. She slowly walked in. The window was bringing in some light from the sun. Vinyl looked at the bed that was in the dark. She couldn’t see Octavia. As she drew closer and closer, she saw the covers were over something and it didn't look like her best friend. But in the dark everything looks different. As she grabbed the blanket and slowly pulled it down to see if Octavia was still alive. She couldn't make out the figure in the bed so she looked closer. As she inched forward to get a closer look at the figure in the bed she felt a hoof on her shoulder... “Eeek!” Vinyl screamed and turned to face the pony standing right behind her. “Geez Vinyl, it's early, why are you here?” The silhouetted pony said. Vinyl recognized the voice but she was too startled to put two and two together. The pony reached to the side and the lights flickered on. “Huh?” By her surprise Octavia was the silhouetted pony. Vinyl calmed down and was able to think clearly. “Oh my gosh, Octavia you scared me and I can’t believe that there was a light switch right there!” Vinyl exploded with so many things to say after being scared half to death. “Yeah, and what are you doing here you’re going to be late for school.”Octavia told Vinyl as she climbed back in bed. “Uh, I got worried. I wanted to see if you were alright.”Vinyl told her and kicked the floor. “I'm fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Octavia told Vinyl and gave her smile. “I overheard the ponies in the front desk saying that you might die.” Vinyl told Octavia and she gave her an embarrassed smile. “Oh Vinyl, that’s just ordinary gossip, I hear my mother do it all the time with her friends.” Octavia reassured Vinyl. Octavia looked at the clock and she saw that Vinyl was really early and was not going to miss school. Not for another hour. “You do know that school starts in an hour, right?” Octavia gave Vinyl a confused look and grabbed the clock that was on a table by her bedside. As Vinyl looked at it, she saw that it was an hour till she had to go, but she wanted to stay with her best friend. “Yeah, but it's only...aww man! I forgot my bag at home! I gotta go, I’ll see you after school Octavia!” As Vinyl ran out of the door and turned the corner, Octavia heard Vinyl crash into somepony with a cart. “Whoa! Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Vinyl cried out while still running to get to her house and off to school. * * * A couple weeks had gone by but Octavia was still in the hospital. Vinyl found that she was lonely without Octavia at school, even though everypony would talk to her about how she fought the bullies and won. Everypony thought she was pretty cool but popularity was not on her mind. Vinyl was more concerned about Octavia. “Poor Octavia, she's going to be so far behind that her grade will to go down.” Vinyl said to herself whilst thinking of a way she could make sure Octavia was not behind on anything. “Aha! I'll just take her work to the hospital and teach her if she gets stuck or if she needs help.” As Vinyl was loving her idea, she came across the problem that she would have to convince her teacher to go with it .She thought that she would just ask him as soon as everypony was dismissed to go home. It would be perfect. “This is great! Alright, now I can spend all, well most of my time with Octavia.” Vinyl was pleased with herself. When the school day ended she waited until all of her classmates had left. “Miss Scratch, you do know that you can go home, or do you enjoy being in a boring place like this?” Mr. Book Burn poked fun at Vinyl. Mr. Book Burn's sense of humor was pretty bad. Vinyl didn't really catch what he said. “Uh, Mister Book Burn, is it alright if I could bring Octavia the work that she missed, you know, since she’s out and can't do it?”She asked hoping for a positive response. Mr. Book Burn looked at her with a very odd look. He had never had any student of his ask him if they could bring their friend the work that they had missed. “Well Miss Scratch, this is a very interesting request but I would say yes, you may.” He told Vinyl. “Yes!” Vinyl yelled but Mr. Book Burn cut short her cheering. “On one condition, if you can bring it back and let me see what she has done. But it will only be at her convenience so there is no due date for her.” He continued. As Vinyl nodded her head yes to her teacher. He gave her a big smile and disappeared into his office. He returned with a very tall stack of papers and slammed them onto his desk in front of Vinyl. “You ARE kidding, right?” Vinyl said while looking at the very tall stack of papers that now sat upon her teacher’s desk. “No Miss Scratch, I'm quite serious.” He said looking down at her. Vinyl cracked her neck and got ready to lift the big stack of papers “Alright, let’s do this! I'm going to try this once and I’m going to get it done.” Vinyl said as she grabbed the stack. “Miss Scratch, did you really think that Octavia missed all that work in a couple weeks?” He told her and started to laugh. “But you said...” Vinyl was cut off by Mr. Book Burn. “You really shouldn’t believe a lot of things other ponies say, you never know, they might not be telling you the truth.” He said and gave her some papers from the top of the stack. “Alright then.” Vinyl said looking very confused. As she walked out she saw the clock and saw that the conversation with Mr. Book Burn had taken too long. As she rushed out to go meet Octavia she was thinking on how Octavia was doing and whether she would be glad that she brought her the missing assignments.