Prances with Ponies

by Typewrittensoul

Chapter 8: Amazing Stories

The air was being chopped. Diced. The sounds of powerful blades cutting through the air filled Kevin's consciousness. All of it soon blended into a single, roaring orchestra and shook him and made everything around him vibrate.

Then there was the crackle and static of...a radio? Yes. The sound of an indistinct voice—male—was scratchy as it garbled incomprehensibly in a flurry of deep bass and beeps.

But his eyes were closed, so he was only making guesses as to where he was. His mind was groggy and his thoughts were foggy but nonetheless it was hard at work despite his existence between sleep and wakefulness. Kevin could only put faith into what he was hearing and feeling was real based on second-hand experience.

Kevin had never been on a helicopter before, but he could vaguely remember the movies and television shows he watched where they appeared. The buzz of the rotors and roar of the engine always made the characters involved in action or war genres that rode in large or medium helicopters that had doors open find it necessary to yell out, even when they had headsets on. While the smaller kinds, with their doors and comfortable seats made for recreational rides had quieter interiors for the characters to interact and discuss the plot and set up the story.

While there was no screaming or dramatic yelling there was still the intense roar of the engine that drowned out most any other sound. So loud that it affected Kevin's ability to hear his own thoughts.

The chatter happening around him was few and far between and when it happened the voices were like grunts and growls. Had he forgotten how to speak? Or was it that these voices were speaking another language? No, it was simply difficult to hear. The headsets the people around him were wearing must let them hear each other while those without them were resigned to hear the roar of air being pushed down by the helicopter's rotors.

Despite the shaking and trembling of the helicopter's frame against the forces of gravity and drag, Kevin felt secure. Physically, anyway. He was bound like he was in a warm cotton-lined cocoon. His face was humid and he could feel his breath bounce off against the stuffy plastic mask wrapped around his face and make his chin feel clammy. The soft hiss of air provided a chilled, filtered contrast to the dry heat felt in the rest of his body and face. He let out a groan and his mask vibrated against his face.

Opening his eyes, the slow spinning blades of the ceiling fan above whooshed deeply as they completed their lazy rotations. Kevin blinked.

A beep.

Kevin saw white. White walls, a white ceiling...the white of frost clinging to the window to his left.

Another beep.

Bedsheets shuffled as Kevin adjusted his body on the stiff, springy mattress. Clean white casts around his left arm up to his wrist and left leg that encased from his knee down to his foot, which hung from a medical sling attached to a poll connected to the bed, allowed the heat trapped by the blankets to escape into the drier atmosphere of the room.

The sky outside was cloudy and gray, blending the drops of white that were drifting downward at an angle.

Beep.

“Sandra? Sandra, he's waking up...” A tired voice yawned out to Kevin's right. The mattress springs squeaked and groaned as he turned toward the sounds of chairs scratching about and shoes clacking against the hard linoleum floor.

A man and woman stood up and approached the bedside with their lips wrinkled upwards into smiles. Dark circles under their eyes and tussled hair complimented the dried trail of drool on the corner of the man's mouth and the faint hint of lines that appeared between the woman's furrowed eyebrows.

“Kevin...” The man was the first to whisper as he rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth, wiping away the drool before digging his thumb against his eyes to rub at the tears that threatened to fall.

“Oh my God, I thought we lost you, too...” The woman was next to speak, gasping out and holding her hands up to cover her mouth. She took a step closer, her hands removed from her face and outstretched and trembling.

Her fingers were cold and dry and pressed against Kevin's cheek as though he was made of putty. The smallest of pinches and the slightest of strokes of her palms against his cheeks were enough for her as she stepped back at the behest of the man grasping her shoulders and pulling her back.

“Hey.” The man's voice came out in a barely restrained quiver.

“...hey.” Kevin said back. His throat was dry and he made an effort to look from the man to the woman in equal amounts of time before he began staring between the two of them. At that point he noticed another man standing at the doorway. Noticing this, Kevin's parents turned as small rap rang out as a result of the man's knuckles tapping against the door he was holding open.

“Oh, come in, come in.” Kevin's gray-haired father beckoned to the other man in a suit. Following his lead, Kevin's mom stepped to her right to stay close to her husband. “This is Special Agent Bernard Dragan.” He said toward Kevin. After a pause, he continued. “He's been the one keeping us up to date since you went...missing...” His voice grew quiet and he gulped.

The man nodded as he stood at the foot of the bed. Although his hair was a dark brown the man in a suit didn't look any younger than the gray-haired father. Kevin looked between the two men and could probably count less wrinkles on his own dad's face than the other man. “Good to see you looking well, Kevin.” The man said.

Kevin narrowed his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows. “Your voice...sounds really familiar...”

He smiled and nodded. “That's right. We had a bit of a chat aboard the helicopter...though it was a bit one sided considering you were hampered by meds at the time.”

Looking weary, the woman shook her head and said “Please, Mr. Dragan...my son just woke up...can't you wait until after the doctor arrives? I'm sure that he can't remember right now an-”

“Sandra, he's fine.” She quickly hushed at her husband's gentle tone. While no less consoled, she took her husband's hand on her shoulder into her own in an effort to subdue the obvious tension in her shoulders and face. After sharing a knowing glance with Kevin the father looked back to the other man. “Agent Dragan.”

“Thanks.” The man nodded. “If you'd please...” The man said and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, right.” Kevin's father blinked at the gesture and ushered his wife toward the door. “I'll tell the doctor that Kevin's awake.”

“We'll just be waiting in the hallway.” She managed to add.

“Sure thing.” The man replied before the door closed. After taking a chair the man turned back toward the bed and sat down, facing Kevin before asking “So, Kevin, let's get the obvious questions out of the way...how are you feeling?”

“Good...I guess...” Kevin said while rubbing his eyes. He sighed, drawing a blank while starting to realize his wooziness. The itch from the I.V. drip taped at his wrist was just barely tolerable.

“Yeah, I figured...” The man nodded and smirk. “If you don't mind me being a bit forward now, Kevin...could you try to recall what happened to the best of your ability, please? What happened on this trip of yours?”

“Before that...could you explain some things to me? Like...how you guys managed to find me?”

The man leaned back into the chair and scratched his temple with his right hand. “Sounds reasonable...we found you near an old Park Ranger station. Well, uh, that's skipping ahead a bit, actually.” He paused for a moment to think, pressing his tongue against his cheek inside his mouth as he did so. “When I came into the case I looked into what happened to your brother. I'm sorry for your loss, by the way...I, uh, actually my brother's kid—my niece—went missing a few years back...unfortunately she wasn't found until it was too late...it's the reason why I joined the FBI.”

“Oh.” Kevin replied quietly.

“Thanks. So, given the big similarity between your and your brother's situations, we more or less took our search to where he was last known. Given that Liam was still not found, himself, it was by miracle that we came upon an old map of the area which marked the Park Ranger station. Going back seventy to eighty years, actually. Suffice it to say, that station failed to show up on any of the more recent maps that had been used so far in Liam's search.

“We asked for the National Guard to go by helicopter to extract you, considering the risk it would've taken to hike to the station. I was there, since I promised your parents to personally be involved and tell them what was happening. I had to pull some strings to join the rescue party. But then on our way, we spotted you through a break in the treeline, using a, uh, large branch like a crutch. We air lifted you straight to the hospital.”

“H-how long were you searching?” Kevin gulped. “How long was I missing?”

“Aw, geez...” The man sighed. “Maybe close to a year, now?”

Kevin glanced toward his left arm and sighed. He clenched his jaw tight and gulped.

“You know, you're probably the toughest kid ever with the injuries you got.” The man's voice drew Kevin back to glance up toward where he was seated next to the bed.

“The pain killers help.” Kevin quipped.

The man smiled and chuckled politely. “Not like you had those in your system when you treated yourself. I heard from one of the medics that it looked like you actually set your own bones in? It wasn't the prettiest looking thing, trust me, but that probably saved your leg if not your life. You're lucky your arm wasn't as bad off.”

“Thanks...my brother taught me...”

“I see...so, did any of what I said jog your memories?”

“No...can't say that it did...” Kevin said, shaking his head.

Kevin heard the man sigh and watched as he combed his fingers through his dark hair. He glanced toward the door to check if it was still closed then looked back to Kevin. “So you don't want to explain what you were talking about on the helicopter, then? The ponies?”

Kevin stared with wide eyes at the man. For close to a whole moment neither seemed to blink. “I talked about...” He grit his teeth. Taking a deep breath, Kevin slowly shook his head. “...what are you saying? W-why would I talk about ponies?”

The man frowned and arched his eyebrows and sighed. “Listen, Kevin...I'm not going to judge you or laugh at you. Beyond the fact that I have a psychology degree, I've got a couple of kids on the task force. No more than one or two years older than you. Veterans. They saw some crazy things while on tour. Some of the stories they told me...some of the people they met...all I'm trying to say is that it's understandable to me that anyone that went through your situation—the hardships you had to endure by yourself—would try to find some way to cope with the stress or else go completely nuts. Find some sort of, happy place or something. It's a mechanism the mind has to help a person to survive. You get what I'm saying?”

Kevin stared down at his lap, unable to respond.

“It's important as part of the investigation to take those imagined situations that the brain conjured up from duress to figure out what actually happened.”

Kevin's took another breath and pressed his head back into the pillow. “And...so nothing from those types of...experiences...are real? It's all imagined?”

“Not necessarily...” The man cocked his head a bit as he continued to explain. “Sometimes the brain is unable to fully recognize certain things and we end up remembering things that never happened or couldn't have happened, but more often than not they're based on something that really did occur.

“For example, some members of the search team went back to check on the station just yesterday when it was light out, and reported that it was pretty much reclaimed by the forest so it was impossible to notice from the air. And even when hiking through it's easy to miss unless you were looking for it.”

A cottage...covered in moss close to the forest...

"Sometimes, a person can get certain things confused like adding a detail from an entirely different moment from something that happened to them only recently into an older memory. The brain's funny like that..."

As the man continued to talk, Kevin shook his head and clenched his eyes shut. He willed himself not to cry. Not to give up on the fact that he had found his brother's camp. That he was found by-

“...here, your journal.” Kevin opened his eyes and saw the leather-bound book in the man's hand. He reached out his right arm and took it with confusion obvious on his face. “You had it on you. Your brother's, too. You're the reason why we've opened Liam's file back up, which is why it's important for you to remember what happened all these months. I already discussed with your parents about taking your brother's journal to figure out what exactly happened to him when he disappeared. But I made sure to make photocopies of what he wrote including the letter addressed to you.”

“Why didn't you take my journal, too? Look into it and see what I wrote for clues?”

“You're here, aren't you?”

Kevin looked once more at the journal, looking worn but still usable, in his hand. As he did so, the beeps of the machine next to his bed made themselves known once more.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

“I'll come by again tomorrow so we can try to sort out what happened after you've gotten a bit more rest.” The man's voice drew Kevin's eyes back up as he stood from his chair and returned it to where he took it from near the door. Placing his hand onto the doorknob, the man looked back at him. “If you remember anything, please call me. Take care, Kevin.”

“You too, sir.”

As he opened the door, the man found himself keeping it open for Kevin's mom as she stepped in. They exchanged quiet nods as Bernard Dragan left the room and closed the door behind him.

Hurrying toward the bed, Kevin's mom made a small smile as she combed her hand through his hair to brush away his bangs. “Hey, honey. The doctor's on his way.”

“Alright.” Kevin said, waiting for his mom to finish with grooming him. When she was done, he brushed his fingers into his hair to mess it up once more. “Where's dad?”

She pouted for a moment but did not comment. “Where else?”

“On the 'throne'?” Kevin laughed softly. She smiled and let out a chuckle as well.

As the beeps returned to prominence once more, she took small, quiet breaths, as though Kevin would blow away at the slightest breeze. She sat on the edge of the bed and gingerly brushed her hand against her son's cheek to make sure he was solid and real. The look on her face was somber.

“You know..." She began, her voice no more than a whisper as it cracked. The woman cleared her throat before starting again. "You know, even before you went missing, when you told your father and I that you wanted to travel...like your brother did...I prayed for you every day, Kevin. And...I respect your views on the issue, but personally I truly do feel that God heard my prayers and it was thanks to Him that you were delivered back safely. And given everything that's happened, I would hope that you'd—if not reconsider— at the very least contemplate on your beliefs just a little bit.”

Kevin let out a heavy sigh but managed to hold back his immediate reaction. Instead, he took a calming breath and thought over the intent of her words before answering. “Thanks, mom. I really appreciate how much you care for me when you say that. If anything, I can admit that I had a pair of guardian angels looking out for me the whole time.”

She nodded and sighed in relief. “I'm happy that you're at least willing to humor me.”

“My pleasure.”

She shook her head and sighed, standing up from the bed. “Your father and I are just going to get some dinner. Do you want us to get you anything? A burger?” When he shook his head in reply, she smirked and combed his bangs out of his face again. “You're still in trouble for lying to your father and I. We'll talk about it tomorrow after you've rested some more. Understand?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you, Kevin.”

“Love you too, mom.” She smiled and leaned in to kiss his forehead before stepping out of the room.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He looked at the journal on his lap.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Kevin opened it and looked through page after brittle page. The washed-out ink had made it impossible to read. None of the words were legible. As he turned toward the end, the paper was less wrinkled but...the last page seemed to have been ripped out. His only solid proof was missing.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Ow.” He flinched at feeling a small scratch against his palm. When he checked closer there didn't seem to be any blood and he looked at the journal in search for whatever offending item caused it.

He noticed a needle poking out from under the leather binding. Carefully he pulled at it, only to find a second needle appear as well. The tight fit the binding had against the book caused the second one to be pulled along. When he succeeded in pulling them out, Kevin realized he wasn't holding onto needles and couldn't help but smile...

...at the sight of the blue and yellow feathers in his hand.

Comments

[Menoshe]

...

Here. I think I know what my reaction is.

*head connects with keyboard*yyyttttttttttttttt4nvgtfcdtvg

[N00813]

"“H-how long were you searching?” Dewey gulped. “How long was I missing?”"
Dewey?

[mattishot]

That ending is eerily similar to my own :) I wrote mine before reading this, but you have good style ;) I love this series, by the way.

[Philobrony]

That last line legitimately gave me chills.

[Tome Turner]

This story...
I don't know what to say...
This is an amazing story!
I'll finish off the rest now.

[Lab]

I remember a similar ending in The Divide 'cept it was with a griffon feather. Not saying blah blah cliche/unoriginal here, just mentioning it.