//------------------------------// // Chapter2: Run for Freedom // Story: Scorched by Fate // by Scorch215 //------------------------------// After throwing my water in the face of the nurse hat wearing demon horse I threw the actual glass at the purple one, sadly it was one of those non-breakable plastic one but had the desired effect of making it stumble back. I expected the yellow one to attack but that one had hit the deck when I yelled which with the other two off balance for the moment by my surprise attack of half a glass of water and plastic cup to the face I had a clear shot to the door. I wasted no time jumping from the bed and reaching the door where I sprinted down the hallway, and by sprint I mean stumble like I was black out drunk and seemed to hit every single bed, cart and random piece of medical equipment currently sitting in the hall, seriously why was there so much crap in the hall and why did it all seemed to be magnetized for me to hit? Anyways I sprint/stumbled down the hall for my life. I swear I could feel movement on my back and almost felt like I was lifting off the ground several time as my ears were filled with a flapping sound periodically. However I was much too concerned with the fact there were more demon horses out in the all dressed like doctors and nurses and all of them looking at me in surprise while I ran/stumbled past them. All I could assume was that I really wish I had a BFG or something as the random uniforms of the demon horses really reminded me of the Union Aerospace Corporation facility on Mars from Doom 3. I kept expecting an Imp or a Pinkie to jump out at me and either throw a fireball at me or try to eat me as is their custom when trying to make friends with you. Sadly I wasn’t a space marine on Mars with military training and armor; I didn’t even have a flashlight! “Stop her before she hurts herself!” I heard one of the demon horses yell behind me, no clue why they knew English or who they were talking about but that didn’t matter, what mattered was making it out of this place and finding help or a place to hide. In a flash of light the purple demon horse appeared in front of me at the end of the hall, thus proving their hellish origins, though I didn’t see the telltale pentagram appearing on the floor to signal the spawn that was beside the point, this was my mind and it was drawing from my knowledge of video games it seemed to create monsters to attack, which means if I found a dark corner out of the way I’d even find a PDA or a weapon laying around or some other useful item meant to keep me alive. The purple demon horse opened her mouth to speak but I chose that moment to drop down low as I rushed forward, I did not trip over my feet, and my shoulder met its chest and we both went rolling. I landed on top as I planned and quickly untangled myself from the purple monster and headed down a side hall, I swear I actually lifted a foot off the ground and floated a several feet through the air as I ran at this point but I’d deal with that later as I saw two demons dressed as orderly block the hall ahead of me. Ok they were bigger then the purple demon horse so the same tactic probably wouldn’t work on them. Looking back I saw the purple demon had gotten to its hooves and was now chasing me as was the cream colored demon with the nurse’s hat. I was trapped. It was at this point another demon, this one bright pink with blue and yellow hair and another nurse hat stepped out of one of the doors along the wall and gave me a new route. I ran towards it and it yelped in surprise as I jumped over it, somehow easily clearing it as I jumped really high and far. Landing on my face I scrambled to my hooves and slammed the door shut and used a char to block the handle of the door. I could hear the demons banging on the door from the other side. “Hah! You’ll have to work for your meal!” I yelled at them through the door. “Hi, can I play whatever game you are playing?” A small voice that sounded like a kid behind me asked. Crap a kid was here I needed to get them out of her; I turned to grab the kid and run but froze as I saw two other demon horses sitting beside a bed staring at me while a smaller one lay in the bed smiling evilly at me. Dear god they are getting smaller, I needed to be careful of swarms. Oh hey the window is open perfect. Keeping my eyes on the three demon horses who had yet to move for some reason, they did menacingly track my movement as I slunk to the window, climbed onto the window sill and leap out. It was at this point I realized I seemed to be on the fourth floor of the hospital. Do to the fact my voice had already sounded feminine I am not ashamed to say I screamed like a girl as I plummeted to the ground bellow as I flailed my arms in a vain effort to fly or grab something, which ever worked. My body seemed to move on its own as I shifted so my back was facing up and just before I reached the ground I stopped so suddenly my teeth chattered in my skull. I blinked as I seemed to hover a foot off the ground slowly bobbing in midair. Blinking I felt movement on my back and looked behind me to see a pair of dark grey wings slowly flapping, my body bobbing every time they swooped down slowly. “Ok that’s just another F.U. to logic right there.” Is aid and in answer the wings snapped to my side and I fell on my ass with a soft thud. Rubbing my ass I looked up to see the purple and cream colored demons looking at me from the window above and I smirked. “HAH! Catch me now you damn demon horses!” I taunted before I started to run. I managed to take six steps before faceplanting again, I was getting better at this walking with four legs thing. I heard a poof behind me as I got to my hooves and then suddenly I was wrapped in a purple aura that lifted me into the air. I flailed my armed to try and hit whatever it was holding me but all I met was air. Cursing I slowly started to move back towards the infested hospital, struggling all the way. “Calm down before you hurt yourself.” The purple demon said as I was turned around to face it, I could see a matching aura around the single horn it had, huh so it was a unicorn demon, hell was getting weird with its unholy abominations. “I have not yet begun to fight!” I said defiantly as I took a swing at the unicorn horse demon of death. Sadly I was a bit too far to make contact. “We aren’t going to hurt you, we are trying to help.” It said as I kept trying to get free. “Yeah right, I know how this ends and if this is game over I hope I give you indigestion.” I said, I was pretty much quoting movies here or at least partly but hey they were good lines and I doubted a hell-spawned-unicorn-demon-horse-of-doom would know that, least I don’t think they have movies in hell, wouldn’t think they’d have good movies down there what with it supposed to be miserable and all. The unicorn demon blanched at what I said, hah! It has a weakness and it seemed to be movie quotes, or plagiarism, either way it worked to my advantage. As I ran through my memories of related movie quotes the demon looked at me. “Will you calm down before you hurt yourself or somepony else.” It said. I stopped at the word “somepony’ do to how absurd it sounded and stared blankly at the demon. “Thank you.’ The demon said and signed and I saw the cream colored demon and two larger demons dressed as orderlies came out of the front door of the hospital and the purple hellspawn turned to look at them. “I managed to catch her.” It said. “Thank you Twilight, I’d hate for her to hurt herself in her panic.” The nurse hat wearing demon said as she got close. I hung there trying to figure out who they were talking about while plotting my escape when the cream colored demon looked at me. “Miss are you ok?” She asked. It took me several second to realize she was talking to me and I blinked several times. It then took me a few moments to realize she just called me miss. “Uh…yes I’m fine…but I’m a dude.” I said, yes I realized how absurd it was correcting a demon horse but not much else I could do while suspended in the air by cheating monster abilities. The two demons blinked and looked at each other before the cream color one spoke to the purple one. “Seems the blow to the head has confused her, we will keep her overnight to make sure she is completely ok.” it said. I blinked as they referred to me as her and she again and then a creeping thought slowly entered by mind. My voice sounded feminine. With a growing horror I slowly reached down between my legs and felt around while the demons were distracted. My eyes became pin pricks as I felt around more franticly and felt absolutely nothing but uninterrupted skin. My rapid breathing caused by my growing panic drew the two demons attention; the two larger ones stood a ways off as they didn’t seem to be needed, and they blinked as me as I kept feeling around for my manhood and found nothing still. “Uh….Miss are you ok?” The purple one asked. My jaw worked as I gave up my search as it was clear there was nothing there but nothing came out at first. When I found my voice all I let forth was what I believe was the longest and loudest, definitely girlyest, scream of my life. <<>> So after I screamed myself till I was blue in the face, I know this do to the muzzle I still had turned a bluish grey color, I finally stopped and hung there gasping for air, screaming is tiring. The two demons removed the front hooves from their ears and rubbed them as they looked at me once they realized I was finished. “Ma’am are you ok?” The cream colored one asked and I slowly shook my head my eyes still pinpricks. “Are you in pain?” Another shake. “Discomfort?” I paused at that one not really sure if finding out you are swapped genders counted as being uncomfortable. I decided it did and nodded my head. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” The demon asked with what sounded like genuine concern. I mumbled my response and the cream colored demon leaned closer, her ear turning towards me. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that could you speak up?” “It’s gone….” I muttered a little louder. The nurse demon seemed to work on making out what I said before she seemed to get it. “What’s gone?” She asked. “It is…” I said once more still in shock. The two horse demons exchanged looks once more probably not really sure what to make of what I was saying, though how could they? They probably didn’t just find out they changes genders! “Let’s get her inside and back into bed.” The nurse demon said and the purple one nodded before carrying me still in the air back into the hospital. I didn’t really pay any attention to the trip and it was all pretty much a single long blur and only realized things had changed when I felt the soft bed under me once more. The shift from being held in the air to resting on the bed and the blanket being placed over me snapped me somewhat back to reality, I’d most likely have a break down later once the adrenaline wore off so I figured I should take advantage of the relative calm I was in. And seeing as it was clear the horse demons didn’t plan to eat me by the fact they put me in bed rather than….well….eating me. So it was I decided to get some answers as to what the hell was going on by asking just that. “What the hell is going on?” I asked. The three horse demons, till I knew what they were they are demons, seemed confused by my curse. It was the nurse demon who spoke up. “You were found lying unconscious in Whitetail Woods by Miss Fluttershy who went and found Miss Sparkle and together they brought you here.” She said. “Do you remember what happened?” I slowly nodded as it was clear as day to me. “Yeah I finished gaming with the guys, grabbed some food and went to sleep in my bed, next thing I know I woke up in the woods and…sort of thought I was in a coma so decided to try and wake up but bashing my head into a tree…..kind of didn’t work….”I said sheepishly. The nurse frowned at this. “You thought you were in a coma so you decided to fight possible head trauma with more head trauma?” She asked. I chuckled nervously. “To be fair I was sort of not in the best mind set what with waking up someone other than my bed.” The Nurse sighed and shook her head. “Be that as it may you are lucky to only be suffering from a minor concession. “She said as she opened the draw on the medical cart sitting in the room and pulled out a stethoscope. She placed the cold metal against my chest as she placed the ear pieces in her ears. While she worked on examine me I looked at the other two demons in the room. The purple one was looking at me curiously while the one I assumed was a Pegasus from mythology, if the unicorn was here why not a Pegasus? Not like this coma dream could be any weirder really as it was drawing on what I knew. I stared at the two for a bit as I didn’t want to interrupt the nurse as she worked by speaking and I cocked an eyebrow at them and they got the hint. “Oh!” The unicorn demon said. “My name is Twilight Sparkle; it’s nice to meet you.” She said smiling friendly. What kind of a name was Twilight Sparkle? No matter I nodded and looked at the yellow one who hid behind her aggressively pink mane and squeaked. I tilted my head at this that was odd as that was not a normal gesture for me but may have something to do with the body; I mean it had wings that had a mind of their own so why not add in gestures? The unicorn leaned down and spoke softly to the hiding Pegasus and after a moment she peeked out from behind her mane a bit. “I’m……I’m….Fluttershy…..”She said so softly I barely caught it. I smiled and nodded but she still retreated behind her mane and the unicorn sighed before looking at me. “Anyways what’s your name?” She asked with a small smile. I glanced at the nurse who took a step back so I could speak and picked up the clipboard at the end of the bed to most likely write it down. For my part I opened my mouth and blinked and nothing came to mind. This was…concerning to say the least as I could remember my friends names, my parent and pretty much everyone else I knew but when I thought of mine I drew a blank, all I remembered was my Gamertag which was what my friends called me mostly. This was very unusual and the three continued to stare at me expectantly. I glanced around to try to find a way to buy time while I worked this out and saw the pitched of water, the glass having been return to its place beside it. “Could I have some water?” I asked, I never did get my drink and after running and screaming I was even thirstier now then I was before. The weird purple aura wrapped around the pitcher and it poured itself into the glass before the glass levitated over to me, why my mind keeping coming up with reasons to tell logic to screw off I have no idea as I always saw myself as a very logical and practical person, but I was too busy dealing with the fact I couldn’t remember my name as well as the other earth shattering truths I had recently learned to care at this point so I filed it away for later freak outs. “Thank you.” I said as I grabbed the cup in my hand-not-hand and took a drink as I thought. I thought back to the times my mom called me or spoke to me and she used my name. I could remember exactly what she said but when it got to my name there was only a buzzing sound as if the information had been erased. No matter the memory I was the same, remember writing my name on my school work? It was smudged all to hell and unreadable. I introduce myself to someone? Same buzz. No matter who said it was a buzz and anywhere it was written was smudged and unreadable. Needless to say this was very concerning as the only name I remember was my Gamertag and when remembering being called that was clear as the rest of the memory. Now as much as I liked my Gamertag it wasn’t really a name, least not a proper one. As I sat there slowly sipping my water, drawing it out to buy time, I thought about the three names I had heard so far, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle and Redheart who I assumed was the nurse. None of them were names like in the waking world that was for sure but neither did they match my tag. I needed something that matched it cause if I am stuck here in my head I might as well blend it a bit. As I sat there I thought about how this day had been going so far and what all had happened and slowly I took my tag and modified it with a bit of new information I have. Finishing the water in a large gulp I placed it to the side and sat back, having to shift my body a little bit do to the wings on my back, those would take some getting used to. With the water finished the purple demon, Twilight, leaned forward a bit. “So what’s your name?” She asked with the same friendly smile. I looked over at her and the nurse readied her pen. “My name is Scorched Wing.”