The Crazies

by SkelePone

Prologue: Scabs

SkelePone (Felix Aberg & Lief Mason) presents

THE CRAZIES

PROLOGUE: SCABS

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

― Dr. Seuss

---

It was a skin condition, they had said.

One that would leave me disfigured for life.

Of course, I was only a colt. I had no idea what it meant to be disfigured. And the idea of being like that for a lifetime was unimaginable.

All I knew was that I had these... scabs. Terribly itchy, flaky, red scabs. All over my body; clumping up my coat and my mane. Mostly the scabs were speckled around my hooves where they would burst open painfully if they weren’t adequately kept. My hooves were already bandaged on that first appointment with the doctors at Ponyville Community Hospital. I was only a foal, so I didn’t really mind having the bandages on. I thought it was cool, even. I kind of thought I looked like an ancient mummy.

I can remember that first appointment vaguely. Almost like it was yesterday.

I’m sitting in the big hospital play area, with a few little fillies getting their check-ups. We're chatting together about who-knows-what, playing with the wood-carved animals and the building blocks that had been there since I was a newborn. I end up making friends with them. They say my bandages look cool, so I let them take a crayon and draw their cutie marks on them. It's something I had started doing back when I was still in school. Unfortunately, their mother takes one look at me and calls the fillies away from me with something almost like disgust in her voice. I shrug it off. Maybe the mother just needed them for something. They’d be back soon enough.

“Salmon, come on. Doctor Gross is ready to see you.”

My mother, Fishnets, calls to me from across the waiting room. Yes my name is Salmon. I was named after the light shade of pink that my coat was. Also, it’s a pretty witty pun. You see, my parents are fisherponies. Nopony really eats fish in Ponyville, but they still fish for making pet food and for sport, or whatever reason one can think of. So naming their pink colt ‘Salmon’ was too good of an idea to pass up. I kind of like the name anyways. At least I wasn’t named Pinkie or something stupid like that. How embarrassing would that be.

I follow my mother and a pretty nurse mare down the long hospital hallways. The lights flicker eerily. But I'm used to it. I've already been to the hospital more times than I can count.

They lead me into a room, and there's a doctor there. I've met him before, Doctor Gross. He's a large unicorn stallion with a white mane and a light blue coat. Over it, he wears a funny looking collared shirt with a stethoscope over that. When I get settled onto the outrageously uncomfortable counter, the doctor carefully removes my bandages. I admit I whined a bit. It hurt to have the bandages removed. Mostly because the scabs would tug at them and sometimes get ripped off. Ouch.

“Ah yes,” the doctor says to my mother, “See here? The coat is already starting to fall out where the scabs form; and constant bandaging and removal not only causes intense pain, but it seems to quicken the spread.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do? A spell? A potion?” My mother pleads. I don’t take notice at her desperate tone. I was too busy looking at the scabs on my hooves. They had already healed over, now nothing but hard red slabs of yuck. I notice I can see some of my bare skin. I shrug that off, too. Hair grows back. And the scabs were so fascinating to my young mind that I could care less about some missing hair.

“I’m afraid not, Missus Nets. Salmon here will have to live with these abscesses for the rest of his life. However long that may be.”

“W-What do you mean, doctor?”

“You see, Salmon’s life span is halved. It’s just simply too much strain on his developing body to have to constantly heal itself like it does. And his lack of a coat, or soon to be lack of a coat… Well... let's just say that exposure to the elements and enhanced risk of infection and disease won’t help his chances.”

“B-Bu…”

“I’m sorry, ma’am," Doctor Gross says as he shakes his head dejectedly, "But unfortunately, it’s terminal. He’ll live to stallionhood. I'm not sure how much longer he’ll have after that.”

I hum to myself; a little song from my favorite television show. I wish I was back at home watching it. This conversation was getting pretty boring.

“Mommy,” I say, tugging at my mother’s mane gently. I can barely grab onto anything with my hooves when they’re not bandaged. It just hurts too much for them to be bare. “When are we going home?”

My mother looks to me with tears in her blue eyes, staring deeply into my own purple ones. She turns away, stifling a sob as she glanced expectantly at the doctor. I’m confused. Did I say something wrong? Maybe today was just a sad day.

Doctor Gross shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t recommend him returning home with you. He's already exhibiting a few irreversible symptoms. In my professional opinion, I’d leave him to the permanent ward here at the hospital. He’ll be safe from contamination and he’ll be able to live his maximum expected lifespan.”

“A-Are you sure it’s… it’s for the best?”

Doctor Gross nods. I yawn. I really wanted to go to bed. It had been a long day.

“It’s our only choice, ma'am. It's too risky to let him remain outside of twenty-four seven care.”

I was left at the hospital. I was so excited, it was like a sleepover. But without any noisy foals keeping you awake all night long and with a nice nurse mare who’d get you water and help you adjust your bandages if they felt uncomfortable. I kind of liked the hospital.

One week later...

I had been informed I was to stay at the hospital for a long, long time. I didn’t know what to do. I cried, sure. My mom visited me every day. My dad, not so much. He was so busy, my mom would say. He can’t find time to visit. Later, I’d learn the truth. My father and mother had divorced, and my mother didn’t want me to go through the pain of losing him forever.

Life in the hospital was simple enough. Eat, sleep. Sometimes go out to the rec room and make some friends.

But my friends were always getting discharged or transferred to new hospitals. Then I’d be left alone once again, with nothing but the hospital staff and my scabs to keep me company.

The only pony who remained with me through the entirety of my colthood was a peculiar filly named Screwloose. Well, in all honesty, I don’t think that was her name. But everypony who was a patient earned a nickname. She was called Screwloose because she was the only permanent psycho ward patient. She apparently thought she was a dog. Which was funny and cool for the first day or so. Then it just got annoying.

Enough about her. I’ll save Screwloose’s story for another day. Now, I want to go along my affliction’s development.

First, the hair around my legs fell out completely. The doctors said that ninety-nine percent of my coat on my legs had fallen out. I lost the hair on my flanks as well. If I ever got my cutie mark, I would never know. Without a coat for the mark to appear on, I’d be markless for life. That depressed me more than the actual hair loss. Imagine it. Waking up one day to learn that you'll never truly learn what your special talent was. It sort of made the whole 'I'm dying' thing that much more realistic to me.

The hair loss continued; I lost my mane after my tenth birthday. Some of it even fell into the birthday cake. Pretty gross, even to me. It didn’t really matter though; Screwloose ate it all anyway.

Before my twelfth birthday, a scab had formed over my left eyelid, closing it completely. I was taken into emergency surgery in a desperate attempt to save it, but it was useless. The scab just kept growing back. So they just covered it in a bandage and gave me a special spell developed by some filly over at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. The spell was good, I suppose, it let me still have depth perception in my one working eye. Not that I cared. I wanted two eyes again. Ponies began to toy around with my patient nickname. Cyclops. One Eye. Stereotypical names that made me feel like I was nothing but a freak. Of course, none of them ever stuck.

My entire head was eventually bandaged. Besides my right eye, of course. I preferred to keep my muzzle tied shut. It gave me an excuse to keep quiet; I had grown a lot more withdrawn in my teenage years. My hindquarters were entirely bandaged up, with a hole for my tail. My purple tail had surprisingly survived my hair loss stage. The only other place on my body with any hair at all still was my belly and some of my back, as well as a patch of fur around my right eye. And those were the only patches of coat you could still see on me; everything else was nothing but bare skin. Mottled red and flesh-colored skin. My only colors were white bandages and those few patches of scruffy salmon hair.

My bandages were magical, of course. I’d never have to change them, remove them. Or whatever else you do with them. The bandages were permanently clean, and they continuously disinfected my scabs. The bandages would detach from my loins and make a little window so I could use the restroom, and they could loosen around from my muzzle so I could speak, eat, and drink. Besides that, they are always hugging at my skin, keeping me warm and giving me protection from cold tables and floors and from various fluid that could give me terrible infections that would hurt like Tartarus on the rare occasions that they would crop up.

Life was, in short, terrible.

Until I met her.

It was some time after Discord had been sealed up once again by the Elements of Harmony when a new permanent psycho ward patient was registered and dumped with the rest of the patients. Her name was Screwball, or so she said. It made sense. Kind of. Her cutie mark was literally a screw and a baseball. A screwball.

I never really learned what had happened to her. I heard rumors that she had taken a plunge into pure Chaos magic. Another was that she wasn't even a pony, but something created by Discord's magic. Whatever her story was, it had given her the ability to levitate anywhere from a few centimeters to several meters off the ground. She also had some sort of ability to do things. Amazing things, miracles almost. But there was a drawback to it all. She was kind of… insane.

She was the most peculiar mare I had ever met. She was creative, random, and strange. But I guess that's what I liked about her. Even if she could be a tad bit annoying or even irresponsible at times. Screwball herself was the one who gave me the nickname 'Scabby.' I didn't like the name, but it was better than 'Cyclops.'

After a couple more years together, the ward began to feel more and more empty. Me, Screwloose, and Screwball were among the last permanent patients left. Ponies would come and go, but we’d be here together. Forever.

We're the three musketeers. I guess, in a way.

Well... no.

That's not a good comparison at all. We're not some bumbling heroes. We're probably the exact opposite of honorable and brave. We're not strong. Besides Screwball maybe. We're not tough. We're just a bunch of locked-up ponies, kept away from others because we seem to disturb them. I disturb them with my appearance. Screwloose disturbs them with her behavior. Screwball is just Screwball.

So no. Don't call us the three musketeers.

Don't even call us heroes.

Call us The Crazies.

Author's Note:

Can't wait to get into this story. Been told it has a lot of promise.

Thanks to Ponyminer64 for editing!
- Skelly (Felix Aberg)

Scabby or 'Salmon''s story is based off of Felix's actual life story. He was unfortunately diagnosed with melanoma, which has reached his lungs. He's given me, Lief, permission to help him get down his ideas and I have promised to him that when he dies (it's been estimated he has less than a year now to live) to finish everything he's started, and maybe even make SkelePone into something more.
Felix doesn't want me saying this, but this fan fiction is dedicated to the life of Felix Aberg. He might leave soon; but the name of SkelePone and the characters he's made will go on.
- SkelePone II (Lief Mason)

Comments

[Radio]

well then
not sure if i like this story. lets see what chapter two will bring.

also I upvote most screwball story I see
profile pic related

[Novalis14]

I like this story, I can't wait to see where it goes.