Chapter 6
The waiting room of Ponyville hospital was completely vacant, save for a single yellow-cream earth pony behind a large wooden desk. The lack of occupants at this time was commonplace. Nopony ever needed medical assistance this late in the day, yet alone at any time during the day. If it was ever used by one or more awaiting occupants, the company would always rush out of the waiting room whenever their turn to enter the main hallway came.
They always rushed out for good reason: the place was miserable. The floors were unswept; a thin layer of dirt and dust covered the entire surface except for a track that stretched between the front doors and the entrance to the main hallway. Rows of fluorescent bulbs illuminated the place, filling the tiny room with artificial light that pounded away at the heads of the ponies inside.
The pony that sat inside was equally as unpleasant. She always sat in her wooden chair behind the wooden desk leaning against the wooden boards that made up the back wall. The position she sat in allowed the curls of her long blue tail to brush against the floor as she tapped her hoof to a beat only she could hear in her head. Large green eyes were always half-covered by eyelids hidden behind a facade of eye shadow.
Today the receptionist had decided to read a magazine, instead of sitting half-asleep with her hooves planted behind the mane that matched her tail. Her mind was preoccupied with the act of reading, but her hoof still tapped a constant, unfaltering beat.
A loud crash erupted from the other side of the room as a pair of hooves slammed into the double doors that made up the entrance of the establishment. An orange blur rushed through them as a cream-yellow blur fell straight down from behind the receptionist’s desk.
“Where’s Nurse Redheart?” shouted Carrot Top, half yelling, half panting. She jumped up and planted her hooves on the desk.
“She’s out of town,” the receptionist responded, picking herself up off the floor. “Now, what’s your emergency?”
“I don’t have one,” the earth pony responded quickly, still trying to catch her breath. “I need to see Nurse Redheart!”
~~~
Derpy sat at the foot of her daughter’s bed, trying to make as little noise as possible. She listened to the breathing of her daughter, getting more stressed out with each wheeze. Every once in a while, she stole a glance at the filly. The sight of the helpless young pony was too much for her to take, and she eventually left the room.
The mare walked to the front door, taking slow, tentative steps as she strode through the house. The entrance was still open from when Carrot Top had last passed through it; the pegasus was too tired and worried to bother closing it. She stared out into the open, even though it was too dark to see anything outside. ‘Where are you, Carrot Top?’
After a few moments, the mare turned around and walked back through the kitchen, stopping at the far side. She started pacing across the floor, following her own footsteps repeatedly. ‘There’s nothing that I can do to help,’ she thought, making a turn for the second time. Her anger began to rise, and her pace began to quicken slightly. She changed her path, heading straight for one of the chairs. Turning around and rearing up on her front legs, she bucked it hard, propelling it across the kitchen floor in anger. It came to a stop in front of the counter.
Realizing what she just did, Derpy calmed down, and sat down on the nearest chair. ‘I’m worthless,’ she thought, sagging lower into the seat feeling sad and alone. ‘I can’t even save the ones I love.’ She turned her gaze to the chair she took her anger out on. ‘And now I’m an emotional wreck.’ Her head sank lower as she sighed.
~~~
“I’m sorry, but did you say you don’t need medical assistance?”
“I do have an emergency!” Carrot Top retorted, leaning towards the mare. “It’s just not here, and I need you to send someone!”
“Look, if if someone else has an emergency, but you don’t, I can’t help you. You’ll need to bring them here.”
“But this is an emergency!” Carrot Top stomped her hoof on the hospital’s tile flooring to accentuate her point. “Somepony is about to die!”
“I’m sorry, but Nurse Redheart is out of town, like I said before,” replied the blue-maned hospital pony absentmindedly, picking the magazine up off the floor to go back to her routine. “All of our doctors and nurses are tied up at the moment, and we can’t send anypony out to take care of your situation.”
“Tied up with who?” Carrot Top shouted at the other mare. “I doubt that there’s actually anypony back there right now! Just look at this room! Has anypony ever used it?”
“I’m sorry, but if somepony you know needs medical assistance, you’ll need to bring them here.”
“I already told you! There’s no way we can get her here!”
“Well then, neither I nor anyone working here in the hospital can help you.”
“Yes you can! Just send one of your doctors or nurses out!”
“Look, I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you’re just causing a commotion. I told you already, I can’t do anything to help you. Now you’re just sitting here making a ruckus.”
“I’m not leaving until you send someone to help.”
The blue-maned mare sighed. She stood up and walked through a door behind her.
“Where are you going? You can’t just leave me here! You better be getting somepony to help me!”
~~~
Derpy suddenly bolted upright in her chair, slamming her hooves down on the table with an audible “No!” erupting from her lips. ‘I can’t think that way. I have to do something.’ Sitting back down, she began to work on a solution to her problem.
She looked back at the chair she kicked. It had landed on its front, legs in the air as if the ground was sitting in it. The legs were facing the counter, pointing at the row of cabinets above it. Derpy’s eyes followed the direction the legs pointed. Her eyes stopped at the specific cabinet they pointed towards, knowing exactly that a row of glass vials were laid out inside.
‘The medicine...’
The mare burst into action, grabbing her set of saddlebags and throwing them onto her back. She ripped both the cabinet door and the saddlebag flags open, quickly ridding the shelf of bottles and dumping them into the open pouch. Sweeping a hoof against the shelf above them, she watched as the neatly arranged syringes cascaded into the other bag.
Derpy suddenly hesitated, afraid to continue with her impromptu plan. ‘What if Carrot Top catches me like this? What would she think?’ a voice in her head echoed.
Nevertheless, she carefully closed the flaps of her bag and tenderly took the first few steps towards Dinky’s bedroom.
~~~
The blue-maned mare emerged back through the door, eyes locked onto Carrot Top. She was followed by a brown-colored stallion with a short white mane cut into a flat top. He wore an official-looking white collared shirt with a red tie. “You’re going to have to leave the premises,” he said with a stern stare. Carrot Top quickly obeyed, shuffling herself out the door. She stopped and glared at the mare that was still inside the building, who wore a sly smile on her face.
“Wow, what a Horse,” Carrot Top muttered under her breath, turning away and beginning her trip back home.
~~~
Derpy slowly stumbled into her daughter’s room, each step followed by a medley of clinks as the glass in her saddlebag rattled and bumped against each other. She set up her post next to the filly’s bedside and began relocating the supplies, placing all of them in a neat row. She then picked up the first ampoule, snapped off the top, and filled the first syringe in the row.
“Here we go,” the mare whispered to herself. She lined the needle up to Dinky’s foreleg, and inserted it into her skin.
Carrot Top strode in through the open front door of the house, silently closing it behind herself afterward. Her heart was heavy, and so were her steps. The mare was too preoccupied with her thoughts to notice anything out-of-place in the room, especially the chair that lay in front of her.
Tripping on the chair was the thing that finally snapped Carrot Top back into the real world. She stood back up, setting the chair upright to prevent other ponies to fall under the same trap. “Derpy?” the pony called out, looking around the room. “Where are you?”
When no answer came, she began looking around the room, looking for signs of the house being occupied. The pile of bags in the corner was unusually small. Her own set of saddlebags was there, and so was Derpy’s mailbag, but Derpy’s double saddlebag set was missing. One of the cabinet doors was slightly ajar, and Carrot Top slowly closed it.
Her attention turned to the chair she just picked back up. Several of the upright struts that composed the backrest were snapped in half, barely hanging on. The splits in the wooden were jagged and splintered, the rips forming two almost-perfect circles in the thin slats.
The mare called out for her room mate again, cautiously poking her head around the corner into the hallway. She began to slowly walk down the hallway, the curious nature of the chair setting her on edge. “Derpy, where are y—” Carrot Top began, cutting herself off at the sight in front of her as she turned the corner into Dinky’s room.
The grey mare was curled up on the floor, quietly sobbing to herself. Broken glass was scattered across the floor, blanketing the entire surface with a layer that was unfit for walking. The carpet was soaked in a clear liquid, the sharp smell of which wafted throughout the air. Several syringes were also on the ground, the plungers pressed down on all of them. Some were sticking out of the ground at an angle, as if they have been dropped or tossed lazily aside without any regard to safety.
The earth pony carefully made her way through the room, tiny shards of glass shattering beneath her hooves with each step. The crunching sound it made only added to her discomfort, making the fur on the back of her neck raise up. She carefully avoided the several syringes that were placed between her destination and the door, almost stepping on the tip of one the was angled slightly upward.
Carrot Top finally reached the pony that was laying on the ground. She lay without a care in the world, the shards underneath her digging into her side. She was curled up into a ball, facing away from the door with her hooves over her face. Her sobbing caused her to convulse with each breath and rub against the ground, forcing the glass under her into her skin. Tiny drops of blood trickled out of each cut, most of them being absorbed by the carpet below.
Carrot Top stood over her room mate, her mouth still agape. “What did you do?” she asked.
“I didn’t do anything.” the pegasus sobbed, her words barely distinguishable over her crying.
“You didn’t do anything? Where did the glass come from? Why did you bring the syringes in here?”
Derpy gave no response, yet alone an indication that she had even received the question. She continued to sit where she was, her only movements coming from the now-silent convulsions from her recent crying. Carrot Top gave a loud grunt of frustration, storming out of the room. She had no predetermined place to go, ending up in the kitchen under her own will. The pony looked around again, looking at all the things that stood out to her earlier.
The chair. The lack of saddlebags. The open cabinet.
Carrot Top strode over to the cabinet door. She opened it carefully, not sure what to make of the unshut state it was in earlier. The mare peered inside with unnecessary carefulness, not even sure why she was so anxious to look inside. The two shelves that had been cleared out to hold Dinky’s medicine were now empty, holding nothing but dust on both of them.
The confused mare ran back to Dinky’s room, not wasting a second on her thoughts. “Where’s the medicine?” she yelled, her voice almost a shrill scream. “What did you do with it?”
“Okay! I freaked out, okay? I gave her medicine!” Derpy whimpered, writhing on the floor.
“How much did you give her?” This time the pegasus didn’t respond, instead choosing to avoid Carrot Top’s glance. “Answer me!” Carrot Top still did not receive an answer to her request. She ran up to the nightstand the Derpy was laying next to, and peered at what was on top.
The glass tops of the ampoules lay lined up in a row. It was impossible to tell how many had actually been opened as some of them were shattered, their remnants mixing with each other and forming a small pile of glass. By checking the large wet spots on the floor, she concluded that it was also impossible to tell how many of the opened ampoules had been dumped on the ground. The floor also had off of the bottles on it in the form of broken glass, either shattered when dropped or lazily trampled on by the pegasus.
“How much was left?”
“I—” Derpy began, pausing mid-sentence. “I don’t know.”
Carrot Top quickly walked over to the filly on the bed, still in the same position as she was when she had left. She began to slowly peel the blanket off the filly. A small trickle of blood had begun to drip down from a large patch of inflamed skin, a jagged puncture wound in the center.
The mare stepped away from the filly without hesitation. “Oh no,” she mumbled, quickly shaking her head back and forth. “We really need to get her to the hospital now.”
“We can’t though,” Derpy replied, unable to make her voice anything but a hoarse whisper.
Carrot Top looked at the pegasus laying on the ground. “And with those cuts, we’ll need to get you there, too.”
“We don’t have a way to get her there,” the crying mare replied, ignoring the last comment about herself.
“Well then let’s find a way!” Carrot Top snapped, shouting at the top of her lungs. The words erupted from her mouth without any hesitation, and no attempt was made to stop, or at least dampen them. The sudden burst of sound silenced the crying of the grey mare, plunging the room into silence.
The room wasn’t completely silent, as it was filled with the soft, rhythmic wheezing of the little filly that lay inside. Her wheezing was barely audible from the distance the two older ponies lay. Slowly, the wheezing sound began to grow louder, eventually catching the attention of the mares. They both turned their heads to the filly, perking up their ears to catch more of the precious sound.
Dinky’s wheezing intensified over the course of several seconds as the concerned duo looked on. The sound grew more audible and more frequent by the breath. With one last wheeze, the breaths coalesced into straight coughing, and the filly raised her good hoof to cover her mouth.
At the motion of Dinky’s leg, Derpy gasped and rushed over, eyes still full of tears. She called out the filly’s name as she moved, while Carrot Top following close behind. They took their spots by the filly’s bedside, the pegasus right by the filly’s head, the earth pony closer to the foot.
The coughing fit slowed, and the filly lowered her hoof as she finished. She turned her entire head slowly to look her mother in the face, moaning slightly. “How are you feeling?” Derpy asked, never giving Dinky a chance to respond. “Can you breathe? Does your chest hurt? What about your throat, does it hurt, too? Is that why you’re wheezing?”
Dinky slowly shook her head in disagreement, opening her mouth in preparation to speak. “I feel tired,” she whispered, her words slurring slightly. “Like, it feels hard to move anything.” Her mouth moved lazily as she spoke, barely able to form the syllables that made up speech. The sound of her voice was also very airy, accented by the constant wheezing that wouldn’t stop even when talking.
Derpy felt a couple taps on her shoulder, and a gentle tug that beckoned her to turn around. She followed the hint, slowly turning to her right as she kept her eyes on the filly. There came a point where her eyes could not keep on the little pony, and she turned them to the larger pony.
“We need to talk.” She led Derpy out into the hallway, both mares avoiding the various hazards on the floor. They closed the door behind them as they walked through it.
“You can’t just sit there and keep talking to Dinky. We need to get her to the hospital. Now!”
Derpy looked away, weighing her options. “We have no way of taking her though.”
“We can get a cart from somewhere!”
“I doubt you’ll be able to find one.”
Carrot Top gave a grunt of frustration, stomping her hoof on the ground. She looked her room mate in the eye, thinking of a way to respond to her pessimism. Instead, she decided that completely ignoring her would be the best way to advance on her plan. The earth pony shoved Derpy out of the way, storming past her and running out the door.
“Where are you going?” the grey mare called out, trying to run after the pony that just left. “You’re not going to be able to find one!” It was too late; Carrot Top had already made up her mind and was too far away to change her mind.
Feeling defeated, Derpy slowly walked over to Dinky on the bed. She sat down next to the filly, ignoring the glass she lay on. She sadly rested her head next to her daughter’s head, stroking her mane and staring into her eyes.
“Get some rest now, Dinky” she said, closing her eyes and continuing to stroke the filly’s mane. “Carrot Top will come back with help.”
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Oh no Dinky Oh please be ok.
So short but so good...
EDIT: CONFOUND YOUR CLIFFHANGERS, THEY DRIVE ME TO USE THE RCV
I'm not crying. pfft. what are you talking about? what? no, that's not mascara running down my face! darn it!
please be okay dinky! please please please be okay...
I wouldve beat the crap out of that nurse and the security guard
Can't any of them carry Dinky on their backs? And why is it so far to the hospital in such a small town? Where are the assistant nurses? Why hasn't Celestia answered to her personal student?
About time for an update!But,Nooo Dinky no
.
.
This story is seriously getting better and depressing, the idea that Derpy keeps feeling guilty for the events with her own daughter and to make it worse, the constantly clashing between her and Carrot Top just pushes it further
991856 i know right?
990237
In the first draft, I mentioned that Dinky was too injured to transport on another pony's back very far without further injury. It kinda defeats the purpose of "can't fit in Derpy's mailbag", though.
Not much of a cliffhanger in this one, more of a continuation.
991856 992652
...Wow. I can't believe I left that first detail out.
As for the hospital being so far away, the hospital is never shown being close to any houses or buildings, so I imagine it being on the other side of town.
Celestia is busy. Since it's late at night and nopony ever needs medical assistance at that time, there are fewer nurses working, and they're busy, too.
Oh crap...Derpy...ARGH! You know, at first, I got frustrated at Carrot Top because she was only doing it to not feel guilty rather than help Dinky. But now it's Derpy who is so sad that she's led to absolute negative and pessimism who kinds of gets me in the "DO SOMETHING!" ppsition, like carrot Top, even though I completely understand why...(Sigh)...this can really get on my feels you know? Thus why this is great
. Anyway, great chapter and see you on the next one!
(Also, imma buck the hell out of the receptionist and the boss...HOW DARE THEY BE SO NONCHALANT IN AN EMERGENCY!
)
Damn, Your story made my eyes break, they won't stop leaking!
Story is intense, especially at the receptionist part.
Well, at least Carrot Top seems to be acting much nicer now. Should be interesting to see how the rest of this plays out.
Aw, I just noticed that it says cancelled
How come?
1395768
Read my latest blog post. The explanation is long and quite drawn out, but it pretty much sums up how I feel about the situation.
Something I didn't quite explain, though, is that the cancellation is based on the fact that I don't see any chapters coming out in the near future, not because I am refusing to write.
Has the new season given you any new inspiration?
I know your not refusing to write.
But still, this story seems to have a questionable ending.
Is that how your gonna keep it for now?
I GOTTA KNOW! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! IM LIKE TRIPPING BALLS HERE!