Ch. 2 It's Always Sunny in Ponyville
I aimed down the iron sights as the howling intensified; a vast shambling horde was pounding at the gates to the run down cemetery. Zombies began to pour over the wrought iron fence as it collapsed under the weight. There was a sharp crack, followed by a high pitched pinging sound as an empty clip was ejected from my M1 Garand’s magazine. Smooth as butter, I loaded a fresh clip, pushing it into the rifle and shoving the bolt of the action home to chamber another round. The next zombie over the fence dropped from an expertly placed shot.
From the belltower of the dilapidated church, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. They continued to stumble forward, eager to break in and climb up to eat my brains. Unluckily for them, I was human, I was lucid dreaming, and I was armed.
This was going to be fun.
Dozens fell before I started to get bored, then I heard the wood creaking in the tower behind me. A zombie must have snuck up behind me. I spun around, leveling my weapon on a startled looking Princess Luna.
“Dawn… I sensed your nightmare. Are you okay?” Princess Luna asked.
“Yeah,” I smiled. “Did you know, I can’t remember the last time I was human in a dream? I’ve just gotten so used to being a pony, I guess. This is fun, I think it’s based on one of my favorite video games.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Of course this would be a pastime on Earth.”
“Brains!” A zombie cried as it shambled up the stairs behind Luna, eager to taste the forbidden flesh of an alicorn.
I leveled the weapon just to the side of her head like a big damn hero in an action movie and pulled the trigger. The round swished through her hair, hitting the zombie and dropping it to the floor.
Luna blinked, looking back to the zombie then to me. She’d seen more of Earth than any other pony by visiting my dreams, yet was still surprised by the brutality of our past times. I didn’t have the heart to tell her this game had only been rated Teen. I fired another round into the zombie’s head.
“Dawn! I think it’s dead…”
“Rule number two, Princess. Always double tap.”
She groaned, “I’m not going to ask… I’m just glad you’re okay.”
I smiled and put down the weapon, picking up a fireman’s axe. I turned it over in my hands, looking at the transition from bright red to silver steel, and the razor sharp edge. “Oh better than okay. Did you know I couldn’t lucid dream back on Earth? I guess some good has come of all this dream magic stuff.”
There was a loud roar and a zombie the size of a fire truck slammed through the wall surrounding the cemetery. It had muscles the size of a suspension bridge cable, and was leaking black ichor from its mouth.
“You’ll wake soon,” Luna observed. “So your… leisure time is nearly at an end.”
“Then I better hurry, I hate waking up before the best part.” I gave her a quick salute with the axe, before turning around and leaping out of the window, axe gripped in both hands. I swung downward as I plummeted towards the zombie’s head, letting out my own warcry. “For Aiur!”
Come on everypony smile, smile, smile
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine
I groaned and rolled over, my hoof falling onto the off button of the radio alarm clock with practiced precision. The sun was coming in through my window, and now that I was up I could hear birds chirping outside. At least someone was happy to be awake.
Lingering in bed for an hour or two sounded pretty good, but it could also turn my day into a slog. If I headed into town I could probably get some coffee to help jump start my day. After that I could check in with the weather team, and then go see if any ponies got lost or injured.
Being on the medical evac and the search and rescue team for Ponyville was a pretty sweet gig. It meant I was always on call, but at the same time apocalypse level events only happened two to three times a month tops. I had always wanted to help people growing up, only now it was ponies instead of people. As much as I loved being lazy, I couldn’t help anypony if I didn’t get my day started. I would need to check in with the guard and the hospital to see if any jobs needed to be done today.
It didn’t take me long to run a brush through my mane and tail, both primarily blonde with a pink highlight in them. I kept the mane short and the tail long enough to cover my rear. Most ponies weren’t very self conscious, but I certainly was when I could feel the breeze back there. Technically you weren’t naked if you had fur, but try telling that to the part of my brain that still thought like a human.
Preening had become second nature and I smoothed out my light blue feathers quickly. A large standing mirror helped me to find and straighten the feathers out. Next to the mirror was a pair of saddlebags, packed full of medical supplies provided by the hospital. I left it there for now; in an hour or two I’d know if any hikers had gotten lost or if any patients needed emergency transfers to Canterlot. I grabbed a smaller bag for carrying some bits around. It hung from one side instead of both like the larger saddlebags.
I headed downstairs and began to rummage through the cabinets. Locating some cat food didn’t take long, and I filled up a bowl for Bagheera. He’d woken up as soon as he heard the can opening, appearing from underneath the sofa. I gave him a quick pat on the head, and could feel him gently purring. After feeding my pet, I found myself a bit of oatmeal in the nearly empty pantry. I was out of coffee grounds and headed back up to my bedroom, instead of towards the front door.
My bedroom was on the second floor of my home, and I stepped out a door onto a balcony. It was a pegasus habit to use windows instead of doors. Maybe we were part cat and just liked being high up, or perhaps flying was just that much better than walking. I flared my wings and jumped over the railing, then glided down into the street. Across the street was Minuette, some new pony who had decided to get a home here in Ponyville. I think she came from Canterlot before.
“Good morning, Minuette.” I waved to her as I started up the street towards the nearest coffee shop.
“Good morning, Dawn,” she called back.
I walked down the street towards the homes still under construction. My home had been one of the first built in the last expansion of Ponyville. As a pony headed down the street towards the center of Ponyville, they also skirted along the edge of the Everfree. Most ponies preferred to find homes closer to Sweet Apple Acres or Ghastly Gorge, but the Everfree wasn’t as dangerous as most ponies thought. Fluttershy had taught me that for the most part, if you leave the animals in the forest alone, they’ll leave you alone in return. I’m glad that was true, because the one time I’d tangled with a manticore hadn’t gone well.
Half my neighbors were newer to town than me, and more were moving in every week. I liked being out here on the edge, it almost felt like the frontier. There was a largely unexplored forest, Zecora’s hut where you could get all sorts of awesome potions, and Fluttershy’s cottage. The rest of the town bustled with activity and lights at night, but for now the edge of the Everfree was quieter and had a nicer view. Dash kept her cloud house near here also. Pegasi preferred to have more personal space and open sky than the other races. If the town kept encroaching on my modest bachelor pad, I might have to find myself a cloud house soon to escape the hustle and bustle.
I was lost in thought, trotting down the road, when I heard somepony call out. “Looks like somepony has a case of the Mondays.” Rose was watering her flower garden with a small green can, and grinning at me.
She must have noticed my mane looking a bit unkempt, and I ran a hoof through it to confirm. I was a bit annoyed. I didn’t particularly like mornings or Mondays, but it was a bit rude to call somepony out like that. It was exactly the sort of thing my old Nurse Administrator Melody would say to me when I was thirty seconds late to work. The less said about her, the better.
However, I had learned better than to be a smartass to ponies who didn’t know me well. Apparently, Twilight insisted, it could come off as hostile. So I didn’t throw back a witty remark at Rose.
“Hey, Rose. Thanks, I must have missed that cow lick.” I smiled back at her.
I continued down the road, noticing the sounds of hammering and a pony shouting commands. Just ahead was a new two story home being built, with a couple dozen construction ponies hard at work. Several ropes and pulleys were in use, lifting up wooden beams to form the structure of the upper level of the house.
There didn’t seem to be many unicorns on this team; it’d have been easier with a little magic. Some cranes would have handled the heavy lifting also, but Ponyville was about as rural as Equestria could be. All the cool machines were in towns like Manehatten. There was a burly earth pony lifting a wooden support beam that must have been ridiculously heavy. I wondered how strong a pony had to be to lift a beam that large by a simple rope and pulley.
That was when I heard the snap. The rope failed in a split second, and I watched the beam, probably ten feet long and almost as thick as my chest, fall down onto a pony who was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ponies began to scream and shout in a panic, looking around to each other and unsure what to do. A couple of the older ponies, perhaps ones that had seen tragedy before, moved forward to start lifting the beam.
I jumped into action without thinking; this was the sort of medical emergency I’d trained for as a human. It was my last link to who I used to be, a skill that even Discord flinging me here couldn’t take away from me.
By the time the two earth ponies began lifting the beam, I already had two hooves under it to help toss it to the side. My wings strained against the weight, but I ignored their protest. There was a heavy thud as the thick wooden plank landed behind the pony and I began checking his vital signs.
He was out cold and not moving. I used the frog of my hoof to try and find a pulse, noticing it was weak and thready. Next I checked his breathing by leaning in to listen and feel it against my cheek. It was there, but very shallow. He was still alive, for now.
I stood up and looked at the ponies gathered around, watching and unsure of how to help. To snap them out of the bystander effect, I picked the first pony I recognized out of the crowd. “Flitter! Fly to Ponyville hospital, tell them I need a trauma team here immediately.”
She nodded, and flew off towards the hospital. I looked down at the injured stallion again, noticing his chest didn’t seem to be moving anymore. He’d stopped breathing. I quickly checked against his neck and I couldn’t be sure I felt the pulse anymore.
“You,” I shouted to one of the earth ponies that had helped lift the beam. “You know CPR?” He nodded. “Good, two breaths after every 30 compressions.”
I adjusted the unconscious pony to give better compressions. It wasn’t quite like a human; I had to adjust for the new anatomy. To date I’d been lucky enough to never need to perform CPR on a pony in a real life or death situation. They say you perform like you practice. It looked like today I’d find out how well I’d learned from Nurse Redheart.
Counting out loud, I finished my first set of thirty. I waited to let my helper deliver a couple breaths. I completed the second set, then a third, and a fourth. Muscles began to burn, but the adrenaline kept me going as we waited for the trauma team to arrive.
By the twentieth set I was tempted to take a break and let the earth pony take a turn with compressions. I knew I couldn’t keep it up much longer, but I also knew handing this off to a pony not as well trained as me could mean the dying pony had a lower chance of survival. That was a risk I was not willing to take.
I was so fatigued by the time the trauma team got there that Nurse Redheart had to pull me back herself, stepping in and using her magic to deliver the compressions.
I caught my breath before muttering, “Show off.” I chuckled and got back to my hooves. The other two unicorns Redheart brought had already loaded the pony onto a stretcher and began carrying him off towards the hospital.
The unicorns took off at a sprint, and the crowd began to slowly disperse. I began to walk after them, my forelegs absolutely burning from the overexertion. As was often the case, it was a lot more tiring than it looked and I may have broken a few of the dying pony’s ribs, but I’d kept his blood circulating. With my legs so sore I went to spread my wings and fly, noticing they were also strained from trying to lift the beam earlier. Still, they hurt less than my legs. After stretching them for a minute I was able to take flight and give my legs a rest.
The cool air was refreshing as I flew. It gave me a much needed chance to take weight off my legs and stretch them out two at a time. As the muscles tensed and relaxed a few times, the aching began to fade. I let out a sigh of relief as my fight or flight response slowly faded. The familiar rhythm of my wings beating loosened up the tight muscles in my back. As I got nearer to the hospital the rush of adrenaline faded.
A clock ticked in the empty hospital waiting room, and I realized I’d been staring blankly at it. The chair I was in had gotten uncomfortable, and I spent a moment trying to figure out how long I’d been sitting here. I didn’t want to leave until I found out if the injured pony would be okay.
I reached over to the small table next to my chair. I stuck a hoof into a small bag of cookies that I’d got from a vending machine and pulled the last one out, tossing it into my mouth.
It was only a few minutes later when Dr. Stable came out of the double doors from the surgery wing. He must have heard from one of the nurses that I’d been waiting out here, because he headed straight over to see me.
“Good afternoon, Dawn. I heard you were first on the scene?” he asked.
“Yeah, figured I’d wait for a bit to see how he did… though I’m a bit worried at how long it’s been,” I replied.
Doctor Stable nodded and took a deep breath, the kind I’d seen before when a doctor had bad news to deliver. “He didn’t make it, despite all you tried to do for him.”
“Celestia damn it.” I immediately felt like there must have been something more I could have done. I did what I always did in these situations; I took a soothing deep breath and accepted that you can’t always save a patient. “What was the cause of death?”
“There’s nothing you could have done, and he’d have been dead on the scene, instead of the operating room, if not for you,” he explained.
“There’s always something that could have been done differently, it’s how we get better. Was he really beyond saving?” I asked.
Doctor Stable nodded. “It was a cardiac tamponade caused by an acute pericardial effusion. Not many ponies could diagnose that on the scene from a visual inspection.”
I nodded and gazed down at the floor in defeat. What the doctor had described was caused by fluid building up around the heart, inside the small fluid filled sac that surrounds it and reduces friction when it beats. With enough trauma, it’s possible for fluid to fill it up, building pressure on the heart until it can no longer expand to pump blood. No amount of chest compressions or first aid would have helped him.
“That sucks…” I sighed and shook my head. “Really was nothing I could have done, unless I knew about the fluid build up and had a needle. Even then, I only know the approximate location for where to put the needle on a human. I guess I’ll have to do more reading on pony anatomy.”
Doctor Stable levitated out a small pen light, moving it over to press between two of my ribs. “Right here, angled slightly upward. I know I’ve said it before, but we’d be happy to hire you full time. I’d happily sponsor you to get you into medical school and become a doctor too.”
I looked down and made a mental note of where the pen was at before he removed it. I really hoped I’d never need to use this information. I realized I was frowning and still staring down at my own hooves. I quickly looked up and smiled at Stable. I could kick myself for losing my first patient in Equestria later, in private.
“Thanks, but I’d always wanted to be on the front lines helping people on Earth. I’m a bit old to start pony medical school and relearn everything I’d need to know to be a proper nurse or doctor in Equestria. I’ll stick to my self-study of some of Twilight’s medical books for now.”
Stable shrugged and smiled. He was always gentle in his insistence that I could achieve more. “This is the first pony that’s died since you got to Equestria, right?” Stable asked. “So far you’ve mostly had lower stakes search and rescue and emergency medical work?”
I noticed him switching tracks, showing his concern for my well being. The good medical professionals never left a colleague to wallow in doubt when they lost a patient. “Yeah, it’s the first.”
“If you want any counselling, we keep a pony on staff for that. You’d be surprised how many ponies have difficulty dealing with their first death.”
I tried to dismiss it with a smile, maintaining eye contact to convince him I was fine dealing with loss on my own. “Thanks, again. I’ve lost enough patients to know the drill. Nothing to do but take a hot bath, do something life affirming, maybe drink a few hard ciders, and do better next time.” I stretched and stood up from the chair.
He let out a soft chuckle. “Sorry. It’s just that I forget sometimes how different your approach to life and death is from us ponies. I may see one or two deaths a year from trauma, but you used to see them daily. I can’t imagine being so desensitized to violence.”
“Well, sure it sounds bad when you put it like that. However, detachment can be healthy when you’re dealing with the worst a species has to offer,” I explained. “If I couldn’t handle loss, I couldn’t do my job.”
“I hope that’s true for you, but if you ever need a friend to talk to, my door is open. There is a difference between handling and avoiding loss.” He reached out a hoof and I shook it. “Always a pleasure, Dawn.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
The flight home didn’t take long, and I decided to stick to my plan of relaxation. A hot bath, some cider, and time to reflect on the day’s events was what I needed, just like I’d told Stable. Now was the time to make myself believe it. I lost myself in thought as I went through the steps to relax and get ready for bed.
Things had always seemed to work out in Equestria, and even though death was a very real possibility, it seemed like Twilight and her friends always came out with minimal injuries. Perhaps on some level I’d started to believe that ponies just didn’t get hurt in Ponyville, not seriously at least. If they did, surely there’d be a spell that could fix it right up.
It turns out, sometimes ponies die, even if I did everything right. There weren’t always magic do-overs or a princess to make things right. As I laid in bed I could feel some of my sore muscles spasm and tense from the exertion earlier.
If only Dash had been here, I could have opened up to her about how I was feeling. She would have understood what it was like. Dash had been to Earth with me. She’d realize how different the two worlds were and how I’d hoped that inconveniences like the pain of loss wouldn’t follow me here. Equestria had been my second chance to live in a world where bad things didn’t happen to good ponies.
I had to intentionally blank my mind with a meditation exercise to stop the thoughts that were racing through my head. I had spent my time dwelling on the day’s events, and what I needed most now was some sleep. Once I had stilled my mind and finished the breathing exercise, I felt an odd tingle and a muscle spasm, then fell asleep quickly.
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Nice
11077787
Noice!
Prediction; The guy he tried to save is the one responsible for the time loop, the "accident" was deliberate to erase knowledge of how the culprit did it.
11077823
Oh I love a good murdah mystery
Can't wait until we get to the point where Dawn just casually shoves a needle into that pony, then goes on with his day.
well maybe this would push Ponyville to have more unicorns or better building equipment
The setup for time loop shenanigans is fantastic, can’t wait to see the second iteration.
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH
11077965
Act 1 does set up a lot of stuff that I make sure to pay off later. That's the best part of time loops.
11077956
They say safety regulations are written in blood, I'm sure Dawn will have something to say about building with ropes and pulleys when you've got literal magic available.
11077953
It won't be a long wait.
11077823
Actually I would expect that person to not put himself under the beam next loop if he's responsible (and thus would remember what happened last time).
Given Dawn now knows how he might have saved the guy, seems more like the story will have Dawn save him next loop. Though if I were Dawn, I'd just leave my house 5 minutes earlier and delay the guy a bit so he doesn't end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Much easier. Of course, Dawn might not catch on he's in a time loop right away.
Or maybe the time loop will conspire to kill this guy no matter what happens.
But I would bet we're seeing an abridged version of Dawn's day cut short by this event. Eventually Dawn will just save him every loop and we'll see more and more of his day play out as he tries to exit the loop. The event is probably unrelated to the loop.
I'm a bit confused. Why are there 2 DoH 3's?
Edit: I am blind and missed the last line in the description. My bad.
a grate chapter.
and i can say as a past volunteer rolling up on on traffic accident just plan sucks.
Now this is remind me with re zero
*Traumatic re zero flashbacks*
ah, just like me to get hyped about something and put it off for a week
haven't read many time loops, so this should be interesting
11078273
I can only imagine how difficult that must be. Mad respect to anyone in the medical field.
Oooh man.
I know how things go from here. This has potential to get suuuuuuuper! It's gonna be. So. Awesome.
11078044
Ooooh... Maybe not that guy, but what if death is like a debt that has to be paid? If Dawn saves one pony, another must take its place.
Redheart is an earth pony though.