Delusions of Equestria

by Opal Rider

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

So many aches and pains. He could feel them all down his body. His head hurt the worst, and pulsed in time with his heartbeat, which was working overtime. The itchy blanket over his body didn’t do much to prevent the air conditioning from giving him goose bumps. He could feel the IV needle in his arm. “That must’ve been some crash,” Sam said to nobody in particular.

“That it was,” the doctor replied. “That it was. You’re lucky to be alive right now. You have a rather serious concussion, though. Might take a little while to recover.”

“Is that so?” Sam asked. He placed his hand to his head, and cringed at the bad idea. “How long do you think it’ll take for me to heal up?”

“It’ll be a couple of months at least. Don’t expect to run off of this one too easily.”

“How’d the rest of the group turn out? Surely they’re somewhere nearby.”

The doctor thought for a moment. “The people in the other car got off perfectly alright, save a few bumps and bruises. The child did have a few broken ribs, though. He should heal up rather quickly.”

“Well that’s nice to hear. But what about my friends? The ones that were in the car with me?”

The doctor thought some more. Walking out into the hallway for a second, he said something to the nurse. She nodded. He walked back in.

“Sam,” he started. “There were no other bodies found in the car. You were the only one there.”

“What!?” Sam winced, as the sharp movement of his jaw moved his head a bit. “So you expect me to believe that my friends just disappeared as the car crashed? Good god, they’re probably lying out in a ditch somewhere.”

“No, I expect you to believe that the concussion might have tampered with your memory a bit. It’s not uncommon. We should be able to get you a psychiatrist, if needed. For now, just rest. You need it.”

The doctor shut the door. The light from the outside hallways was cut off, leaving Sam in the middle of a sea of green and red light dots, coming from the machines on either side of him. He turned his face into the pillow, to blot them out.

Hours passed. Still no sleep. If he had had something to do, he would gladly give up this hopeless endeavor, yet staring at the ceiling didn’t exactly count as something to do. He started drumming on his chest. It was one of the odd things about Sam; he always had to be doing something with his hands. Being it picking his nails, fiddling with a pencil, or, like now, playing the drums, his hands were in constant motion. It wasn’t exactly entertaining, more like habit. He leaned over to look at the clock. 3:41. he had a while to wait before his morning meal. Sighing, he fell into the lightest sleep he ever received, tossing and turning throughout the rest of the night.

Waking up, Sam rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the pounding headache. An nurse walked in, carrying a tray of some of the hospital cafeteria food. Sam looked at the mixture of jello and… er, something else, and took a tentative bite. While edible might not exactly be the right word, it certainly wouldn’t kill him. However, with the lack of movement and worrisome news he just received the day before, his appetite shrunk severely. As the nurse picked up the tray again, Sam got a last idea that popped into his head.

“Ma’am?” He asked. “You wouldn’t happen to have a notebook laying around here somewhere that I could have, would you?”

The nurse said nothing, which seemed to be becoming a trend with her, but nodded and exited the room. Coming back a few minutes later, she handed him a blue spiral bound, and while the cover said 80 sheets, he was pretty sure that there was a bit less. He took the notebook from her with a “Thank you”, before watching her turn away and exit the room.

After waiting a few seconds, he grabbed a pencil off of the table beside him. Flipping the notebook open to page one, he put the pencil to the paper.

Day one. He wrote. And then, he stopped. Not because he didn’t want to continue, but because he realized that other than lay in bed the entire day and night while he was here. He could always write about his feelings, but at the moment they were so jumbled that he didn’t know whether even he could decipher them. So he wrote exactly that. Guess what I did today! He wrote. I sat in a hospital bed (Insert smile here). I guess there really should be more of a point to this entry, so I’m going to fill it up with things I might be able to have fun with without having the doctors grab me by the throat.

Number 1: Television. The most obvious solution, although not the most entertaining, I’m sure. Might hold my attention for a few minutes at a time, unless. . . hang on. . . Today is Saterday, at 12 in the morning. Time for some ponies.

And with that, he set down the notebook, grabbed the remote from beside his bed, and turned the channel to the hub network. As the theme song hit his ears, he set back into a comfortable position, and put his hands behind his head. The episode started, and the mirth began. The camera focused on the mane six in the town square, holding a get together around a table. However, after a few seconds, that was the least of what caught Sam’s attention. As the scene progressed, two black outlines came charging down a street in the background. One ran into the middle of the square, and put a hoof to his mouth as if he were yelling something. The other one ran up close behind, before turning towards the former, and having what Sam assumed to be a conversation of sorts. The first one nodded, and walked over to one of the background ponies. He stopped, and this time Sam thought he saw a mouth opening and closing, but the other horse continued walking in the direction she was headed, completely oblivious. Well this is strange, Sam thought, as he watched the pony walk down another alleyway, closely followed by the other. I’ll have to get a hold of a computer sometime, to see what the internet makes of this.

He didn’t even wait to watch the rest of the episode. Flipping open his journal, he drew a line under the initial entry to separate the two, and began to write.

I just watched an all time weird. Never have I seen two black outline ponies walk across the screen in the middle of an episode, nor any other time for that matter. Must research, must research, must research. . . GAH! Give me my own house any day. I’m gonna go crazy in here.

Looking up from his notebook, he watched the pink credit screen appear in the place of the episode he had just missed. Maybe next Saturday, he thought.