Deafening Silence

by The Lunar Samurai

Blood

“Lilac!” A voice shouted. Aspen tried to open his eyes, but the pain in his leg kept them closed. “We have an emergency.”

“What is it this ti-” A feminine voice said in the distance. “What happened?”

“It looks like a gunshot wound.” The first voice said. Aspen felt a wet hoof on his neck. “He still has a weak pulse.”

Aspen could feel his broken leg being gingerly lifted from the table. A searing pain shot through his body, causing his mind to slip from consciousness.

When he came to he could hear lilac shout.“Get me a bucket of water and several towels.” The voice changed to a whisper as she leaned next to aspen’s ear, “You are safe now.”

“It’s worse than I expected. The bone’s becoming infected.”

“How can you tell?”

“You can see the discoloration of the bone behind the wound. Also, the wound is infected as well. If the body is rejecting that much tissue and the bone, amputation is almost completely necessary.”

“Does that mean?” the stallion’s voice trailed off.

“Yes.” Lilac said. “Get me the saw.”

Is there any other way? Aspen thought as he realized what was about to take place.

“If we try to work around it there is a very slim chance of survival. Kale, clean his leg, right above the elbow.”

Aspen could feel a warm towel carefully scrub his upper leg. “Alright.” Kale said as a shower of cold water rained down and washed the warmth away. “I think its ready. Are you sure there is no other way?”

“Nothing else can be done.” Lilac said. Aspen could feel the line of sawteeth rest on his skin. “Hold him down. This should only take a minute, but if he wakes up I can’t have him thrashing around.”

Kale pinned Aspen to the table. One hoof on his head, the other on his leg. “Ok, we’re ready.”

The prongs began to slide back and forth. Each pass drawing a new exquisite pain from their biting grip. Each wave of pain crashed onto his mind, he wanted to scream, but his body would not cooperate. As the blade reached the bone Aspen’s mind collapsed.

---

What seemed like seconds later his eyes slowly cracked themselves open. He let out an agonizing moan as he began to come to his senses.

“Easy now.” Lilac said as she trotted to his side. The white mare held a cloth to her face as she addressed him. “You need to rest.”

Aspen moaned again as he began to feel the pain in his leg. His gaze slowly drifted across the cottage.

“You are in fillydelphia.” The stallion said as he placed his hoof on Aspen’s shoulder. “You are safe.” The stallion looked into Aspen’s eye. “Are you infected?”
Aspen tried to speak, but the only thing he could manage was a low moan. Feebly he shook his head, wincing as it rolled over the rough surface.

The stallion shifted his gaze to Lilac, his eyebrow cocked. “He might still be delirious.”

Slowly, Lilac removed the cloth from her face and placed it on the table. “I think he’s fine” She said, but the words still held a twinge of worry.

“Where,” Aspen struggled to whisper. “Where is my family?”

Lilac looked at the stallion lying on the table, then to Kale. He was fighting back the emotions that were building up inside of him. They both knew what happened to Aspen’s family.

“Your silence speaks for you.” Aspen said. His breathy words cut the silence like a knife. He let his head roll to the side and let out a deep sigh. Slowly a pool of tears began to grow around his head as he wept.

“I’m sorry.” Lilac said, but the words did nothing to comfort Aspen’s soul.

“It’s not your fault.” he whispered as he slowly began to slip into a coma.

“Stay awake!” Lilac half shouted as she slapped Aspen’s face. He let out loud cry as pain shot through body.

“Lilac! What are you doing?” The other stallion shouted.

“Keeping him awake.” Lilac said as she grabbed a bowl from the counter and quickly filled it with the thick soup from the kettle over the fire. “We cannot let him go under again. Eat this.” she said, thrusting the bowl next to Aspen’s face.

He shook his head and took a deep breath. “What happened?” He asked, his voice slowly beginning to return, half fueled by the shock.

Lilac’s gaze drifted to the severed leg on the floor beside her. Aspen leaned over the edge of the table to attempt to get a glance at what had grabbed her attention. He tried several times to prop himself up, but each time couldn’t feel the table with his hoof.

“I’m sorry.” Lilac said as she noticed Aspen struggling. “There wasn’t anything else we could do.”

“What do you mean?” Aspen asked groggily as he again tried to sit himself up.

Lilac took a deep breath to brace her emotions. She gestured to Aspen’s shoulder, his gaze drifted down the matted fur of his foreleg to its bloodied end.

“Why is my leg gone?” Aspen asked. Lilac was surprised at the level headedness of his question. Most ponies were either overly furious or emotionally devastated when she had performed amputations at the local hospital.

“Your bone was infected, and the supplies to treat it were not available.” Lilac said as professionally as she could.
The stallion on the other side of the table spoke up. “Why were you lying next to a burnt building in the middle of the forest.”

“A burnt building? What burnt building?”

“I found you nearly dead, shot in the leg, next to the smoldering remains of a building. Please enlighten us why.”

“I-” Aspen paused, “I don’t remember.”

“Maybe this will jog your memory.” The stallion said as he lifted the saddle bag from the ground and placed it on the table. “It was on your back when I found you.”

A long silence followed as Aspen looked at the soaked saddlebag. It was completely foreign to him, but once he opened the pouch everything changed. He reached in and pulled out two half soaked, half moldy pieces of bread. Lilac and the stallion looked at one another with confused expressions.

“No,” Aspen whispered, his body beginning to tremble. “Rain Dancer.”

“Who is Rain Dancer?” Lilac asked to Aspen.

Tears began to pour themselves down Aspen’s face as the memory of the fire returned.

“Please,” He asked as he looked at the stallion. “What did you see when you found me.”

The stallion bit his lip and took in a deep breath. “Every building in the clearing was a pile of ash.”

“No!” Aspen shouted. His body began to convulse as he wept. Lilac and the stallion exchanged glances. Suddenly, Aspen forced himself off of the table and onto the floor. “They had a cure!” He shouted as he tried to stand.

He began to hobble to the door, but was thrown to the ground as the stallion slammed into his shoulder. “Don’t squirm, your wound could open up again.” He said as he pinned him to floor.

Aspen struggled feverishly beneath the hooves of the stallion, but his body was still weak. He fought until he was red in the face, but he could not throw the stallion off. He threw his head back to the floor and let out a moan. His adrenaline was fading, and his energy was being replaced with fatigue and pain.

Lilac walked over to Aspen and motioned the stallion off. “He isn’t going anywhere.” She said as she knelt down beside him. She held out a bowl of steaming soup to Aspen’s face, but he turned away. “I don’t think we have properly met, I’m Lilac.”

“I’m... Aspen” He stammered as he tried to quell the phantom pain is his stub. “Where am I?”

“You are in the city of Phillydelphia, in an old farmhouse.” Lilac said, gesturing to the dilapidated building around them. “This place is where Kale and I have taken up residence. There isn’t anything decent in the city, and this is isolated, just the way we wanted.”

Aspen’s eyes followed the twitching stub with a grotesque fascination. He could still feel his foreleg in his mind, but his eyes told him otherwise. He thought for a minute as his mind slowly reconstructed the memories of the gunshot. “Did you see who shot me?”

“No,” Kale said, an apologetic tone in his voice. “The only thing I found was you, nearly dead, next to the smoldering foundation of a cottage.”

Aspen was silent for several minutes. The only thing in his mind were the last words the guard said, Let him suffer. Aspen looked to Kale. "Why did this happen?"

"From what it seems, your village was overrun by the plague." Lilac said. "How were you not infected?"

"I apparently was immune." Aspen said. "But now I wish I wasn't"

Kale and Lilac looked at eachother, pity was on Lilac's face, and worry was on Kale's.

"Don't talk like that." Kale said. "There is much more to life than a house." He felt the words pass his lips, and immediately regretted them.

"You think this is just over a house?" Aspen wheezed, his anger slowly building. "This is about loosing my life."

"I didn't mean-"

"Those guards killed my daughter because they wanted to make a bit on the black market!" He shouted

"Aspen..." Lilac said, trying to keep him from his anger.

"I swear, if I have a breath left in me, those soldiers will pay!"

"No matter what you do, they are still in charge. If you kill them, nothing will be better."

"They'll be dead." Aspen hissed through clenched teeth.

"All of the guards are like that, and many more are even worse." Lilac said, "I would know, they killed my father, because he couldn't pay his rent."

"All the more reason to-"

"To what? Try and exact revenge on a force that is a thousand times greater than yourself? To try and repay a wrong that can't be repaid? To act vengeance on the empire is to summon death." Lilac said, her voice holding minute traces of bitterness.

"I have to do something!"

"I too felt the same way, but we are powerless against them." A long silence followed as the implications sank in.

“What happened to justice?” Aspen asked, his voice getting weaker with every syllable. “Can’t something be done?”

“Nothing.” Lilac said gravely.

“This world, it has no morals anymore.” Aspen said as he began to drift to sleep

“We’re losing him.” Kale said as he grabbed Aspen’s hoof and began to massage it, as if the minute stimulation would keep him awake.

“Let him rest.” Lilac said as she rose to her hooves. “He should be fine.”

Kale paused and looked at Lilac. “Whatever you say.” He said uneasily as he watched Aspen slowly slip away from them.

“We need to get him to a bed, I vote yours.” Lilac said as she lifted Aspen’s head and motioned for Kale to grab his legs.

“You are always volunteering other pony’s stuff.” Kale said.

Those words were the last he had heard before he slipped into the shadows of a coma.

Comments

[Dark starlight]

That fatherly love wanting to kill those butt holes

[The Lunar Samurai]

3152805
I tried to illustrate total detachment, the raving emotions, then a collapse.