Have you ever felt like life is a dream? Well, what if it is?
Elegance Lavaliere is stuck in two lives, constantly switching between each other shortly after falling asleep. In one, she is diagnosed with cancer by a cruel doctor who threatens her if he does not get his way. In the other, her friends start turning against her because of her odd attitude and are ready to betray her, unless they find out the truth about her behavior.
I dropped down to the ground and clenched myself, gasping as the pain came back to me. My whole body became paralysed in pain much greater than before. I looked up to see my vision turn to nothing but shapes and shadows. Blurred faces filled my vision and echoed voices quickly started yelling at me, too hard to make out what they were saying. I closed my eyes tightly for a moment. When I reopened them, I knew where I was ... at the hospital. My consciousness was low, and I was struggling to stay awake and my vision faded in and out as I tried to hear what was happening. A few words were heard, such as 'cancer' and 'unnoticed until now'. I saw the doctor's face for a second. It was mixed with anger and familiarity towards me; he obviously did not like the fact that I was here.
I was very scared; I just wanted to both scream and cry. The last thing I remember seeing is a light. No, I was not seeing the 'death light', but something else. I didn't care what it was, I just wanted it to stop.
I woke up and yawned as I lifted my lazy body out of bed. I trotted up to the curtains to open them and instantly murdered my eyes with the bright morning light. After they had recovered and adjusted to the sudden change, I took a look outside. It was a very nice day, but I unfortunately wasn't able to appreciate it as much I could have with the nightmare still in my mind.
"Every night it's the same dream, always continuing where the last one left off. What do they mean?" While I was pondering this, I was immediately distracted by the sight of my friends coming over to my house.
“Oh boy, what kind of trouble are they going to get me into this time?’’ I wondered.
I heard the doorbell ring and quickly made my way to the door. Lighting was already in my face when I opened it.
“Heeey! Sup eh?! So y'still helping Strawberry Marine with her yard?“ he asked.
“Wow, I can't believe that slipped my mind, sorry Strawberry!" I replied.
“Oh, that's fine," she said," I never forced you or Lightning to come so...”
“You always forgetting now days, eh?" Lightning interrupted. "You still up for it at least?”
I hadn't eaten anything, but I probably didn't have much food anyway. It was either this or shopping for food, and I. HATE. Shopping.
“Uh...yeah, sure.” I answered, trying to suppress the dream, which I apparently did terribly.
“Are you okay Elegance? You seem very distracted lately, today more-so than usual. If there's something on your mind you can tell us, we wouldn't judge you.” Strawberry asked.
“Yea men, what it is with you? Whatch'a bin smokin'?”
“Ye- Uh I mean no! I mean... look, it's nothing to worry about,” I said.
I couldn't just tell them, how would they react? They would have thought that I was crazy!
“Okay, but you can tell us anything, that's what friends are for.”
“Yes, but I can assure you I'm fine. It's just... It was just a bad dream, I can't even remember it anymore.”
“Ah yea, I had like a dream last nite too!" Lightning started "There was this really hot mair staring at me so I wanted to show off my skills y'know? So I like challenged this ugly red colt with a yellow-and-green mane to a cider drinking competition. He looked like he'd never drunk in his life. The important thing was that I won, tho! So then I brot this hottie to my place then we like totally... Oh wait, I'm preetty sure it was dream."
"What happened next?" Strawberry asked.
"Uh, I think that's quite..."
"We played rock-hero and she totally cheated too! I swear th'gaym's racist, how can you even play unless you're a uni-cron!?"
Lightning, by the way, he always spoke like that, but we never brought it up. A few hours later we had done quite a bit to Strawberry's yard, we de-weeded, mowed it then Strawberry rewarded us with some lemonade and a great idea.
“Do you guys want to check out the amusement park before it closes down for the year?" asked Strawberry, "It'll only be open for a few more days. I could pay for your tickets and you can consider that your payment.”
"Ya, but no!" exclaimed Lighting, "I'll just take the cash."
"She technically doesn't have to pay you anything, you volunteered to help with me."
“The... what's that? O, Y'mean the park with all those sexy thrill rides?! Hell yea, I totally wanted to check it out too ey!”
Strawberry offered to bring us all in her carriage. The whole trip was about 20 minutes. Strawberry is one of those lucky ponies who had a stereo system in their carriage. One of her friends offered to install it in for her at a very low price. Lightning, unfortunately, was another one of said lucky ponies, rumour was that he stole the parts to install his, but he claimed that he had bought it. I wasn't one to jump to sides.
“Yo! Turn on the radio!!!” Lighting whined.
“Okay... sure, uh, what station, Lightning?” Strawberry asked him.
“I dunno! Something swagg, like 's-x-y' radio!”
“Uhh, no. How about something such as 'f-m-l-y' radio?” I quickly asked her.
“Aaaaaw!!! Huge turn down!”
“It's still got your 'swag' rapper-colts, just on a more... acceptable level.”
“Fiiine!”
Strawberry turned on the radio, and music started blasting as Lightning maximized the volume, almost giving Strawberry and me a heart attack.
“Defrig's the bass?” he yelled.
“Huh?”
“You know! The bass, y'know like the exact opposite of what your speakers are barfing out now.”
“...”
“BASS spelled 'b-a-s-e' or some crap!” Lightning explained.
“Its spelled ‘b-a-s-s',” I cleverly added.
“Man, you stupid! That's racist! That's just 'ass' with a 'b' on it. Even I know that, and I'm supposedly stupid! hahahaha!!!”
I smirked, “Well, clearly your teeth are brighter than your brain, as even little foals know how to spell it.’’
“Yeah, well... yo mama!’’
“Alright, how is my mother related to this in any way?’’
“She so poor that she ran up to a garbage truck with a shopping list!’’
So we finally arrived and I'll admit, the park was a lot bigger than I thought. Apparently, this amusement park came around once a year in Ponyville and only for a week. Despite Strawberry's kind offer to pay for us, we each paid for ourselves at the entrance then walked in and started exploring the place. Strawberry was horrified of thrill rides and insisted for most of the time that we ride on the slower ones. All I knew was that with each ride, Lightning’s patience started dying.
“Enough of this! I’m goin’ on the lejit freaky rides ovr’ dare! Whoever ever want to come with me on the Desert Screamer... well come on, eh!’’
We all just stared at him without moving as he started making his way towards the ride.
“Ha! Good joke, but I'm slowly making my way eh, better catch up a bit now!’’
Nothing.
“Oh come on! I've known you gerls for years! I know one of you mite be too scared, but te other has no excuse. You know who im talking ‘bout! Now get your as over here Strawberry!’’
I wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. Strawberry managed to whisper out a ‘no’.
“You gonna be cul or are you a wimp too, Elegance?’’
Now you must understand something. I am a mare that can tolerate a lot. I've managed to handle Lightning’s humour, (I know it’s all in good fun, but sometimes he hits sensitive subjects) Trixie’s loud-mouth, and I even managed to recover from Discord’s 'improvements' to Ponyville with only slight fear for a week, but when someone questions either my bravery or beauty (don't question me; I'm gorgeous) I cannot stand that! Nopony calls me a wimp!
“Oh, I'm not scared in the slightest. you, on the other hoof, are probably going to end up crying in a fetal position!’’
“Egg-cellent then, first too screem has to sing on the karaoke stage!’’
“Oh, it’s on!’’
I smirked. Strawberry could only look at us in horror, violently shaking her head in dissaproval.
It was a very tall ride. It had sand at the base of the structure. Above the frame supporting it was a giant wheel with arms where the seats were attached. The seats were entirely covered by a metal case and a barred window. Basically, it was a big orange metal box with prison door bars. This by itself would be fine, of course. The thing that frightened me, however, was that the seats were spinning the opposite direction than the giant wheel, and it was going at a ridiculously high speed.
As me and Lightning started walking up to the small line, a huge fear crept over my body.
“Help me Celestia,’’ I muttered to myself as the ponies right in front of us walked into the ride. The ride keeper slammed the metal gate in front of us closed.
“Please be patient ma'am, you’re next. You don’t have to be in such a rush to get in.’’
'A rush to get in?!' That ride felt like a one way path to my death, to Tartarus and back again in reverse, and HE goes and states ‘a rush to get in’ I’ll show him a rush! I was in a 'rush' right then to rip off his...
So the ride, of course, chose to shake, making a loud enough noise to scare me half to death. After a few seconds, the ride started moving and a young colt began screaming. ‘Moooom! I want off this thing!!!’ I couldn't see much in that orange cage, but I knew that he was desperately holding on to the bar, eyes wide, looking down crying. I turned my head over towards Lightning. He must have known what I was looking at because he turned too and gave me a disturbingly large grin.
As expected, the ride ended too quickly. The colt that I had been watching was crying. This was REALLY not going to be my day and I was not excited to get in!
“Yo lady, get in!’’
I stuck my tongue out and proceeded to walk through the gate with Lightning. The ride operator led us to a seat that already had a pony sitting in it.
“Uh,’’ I started saying.
“What? These seats were meant to hold up to three ponies, you’ll be fine.’’
"But she... just rode... ah, never mind."
We sat down next to the strange cyan coloured mare; she had a rainbow coloured mane and a triple coloured lighting cutie mark with a cloud to top it off. She stared at me awkwardly for looking at her flank, then the ride operator put on our seat belts and slammed the metal grid door shut. We all sat there for a few seconds, I was breathing heavily. Lightning was smiling, but he looked very nervous.
“Don't worry Elegance,’’ I thought to myself. “Nothing bad is going to happen.’’
“I wonder what would happen if I loosened this bolt,’’ said the mysterious mare.
“I knew it, I'm going to die!’ I thought to myself.
“So you guys are pretty sick to have chosen to ride on this! Heh, half of the ponies in Ponyville are too scared to get within 100 hooves or whatever of this ride! I'm Rainbow Dash, by the way, but you've obviously heard of me!’’
“Aah yea, man! I think won of my frendz called you-’’ I shoved my hoof in his mouth.
“Say what now?’’
“Just ignore him, Rainbow. He’s like that sometimes. Actually, all the time.’’
“Okay then... Hey, just think! One thing goes wrong on this ride, and we could all die!’’
“Oh, thanks a lot for that...’’ my stomach turned sour at the thought.
“Yeah! One loose bolt could send us flying at an incredible speed until slamming us unto the ground! Upon landing, the metal smashing against our body, tearing our weak flesh apart violently, crushing half of our bones! That would be so CRAZY! Imagine all the blood and-’’
“I GET IT! Let’s just TRY to enjoy the ride!’’
“Ugh, fine!’’ she replied, clearly annoyed.
I knew it was just a matter of seconds until the ride started, and after hearing what could happen at the first sign of malfunction, I almost chose to leave. The only reason I stayed was because I wanted to prove a point. Apparently, even if it meant risking my life.
Every second felt like hours as I waited and prepared for the worse. Finally, the ride started moving up slowly. My eyes widened as we got higher and higher. I've always been scared of heights, but I'm an earth pony, give me a break! Rainbow Dash let out a big sigh as the wheel holding our seat started turning quickly and in the opposite direction of the giant wheel. I felt myself being forced downwards to the seat as the ride started turning upwards very rapidly. When we went down, I felt like I was partially being lifted, and the seat belt was crushing my chest, before being slammed against the seat again. By this time, I wanted to scream very badly, but I still wanted to prove a point. Lighting, however, WAS wailing like a newborn. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at him in annoyance. After a while, I had no idea what was going on anymore; I just let myself go numb while Lightning continued to scream. The rest is just a feeling of nausea every time I dared to look out the barred door, and desperately trying not to scream as my body felt things they had never felt before. Time could have chosen to close down on itself, and I swear I would have not noticed it. Apparently, it didn't though because the ride did choose to stop.
Rainbow Dash screamed ‘Best ride EVER’ while me, and Lightning were shaking as we got out of the ride. When my vision cleared I could see Lightning’s face, it looked a bit like he was traumatized mixed with something else, but I couldn't put my hoof on it at the time. I gave him a superior look and accidentally tripped. We both shared a laugh at that. We made our way to the exit gate and left. We made our way over to Strawberry who just wore a face of embarrassment and shock. All she could say was that we were very stupid. I couldn't agree more, and I love myself for it.
We were going to ride more of the rides, but Lightning was against the idea, so we didn't. Poor guy, I guess the ride really was too much for him. I can’t blame him; I felt like I was still on the ride being pulled up. We were at the park all day, and it was getting pretty late. There was one more thing we needed to do before we went though.
“Ooo Lightning ~’’ I fluttered my eyes at him.
“Wat.’’
“Remember your part of the deal?’’
“Say no more, ey'll do your sili thing’’
“The karaoke?’’
“Yesh’’
So I lead him to the karaoke stage, and I started looking through the songs. That’s when I found the perfect one.
“LOL, yu must be pulling on mye leg!’’
“Just sing the words on the screen.’’
The audience started to cheer him, causing a slight blush on his part. Their reaction dramatically changed after he actually started singing.
“My litle poni, my litle poni.. ah aaah aaah AAAAHHH! My litle poni, i was wondering what was friend-ships my litle poni, until you shared it's magic large adventure tons of pleasure a beautiful heart loyal and strong sharing of the kindness, it’s an simple exploit and magic makes it ALL compete eeeYAAAH myyy litle poni do you not know that you're my best FRIENDZ! YEAH!
***
After that exhausting day, all I had in mind was to eat a quick snack and head to bed. All of this excitement was a bit too much for me, so I went to my room, and jumped right into bed. I mentally kicked myself for avoiding to buy food again. I was going to do that tomorrow FOR SURE.
Nothing could go wrong.
Remember what I said about having dreams every night? Well, that night was one of them as well, I really did not want to dream about me having operations and cancer, but I needed sleep and needed to take this silly ride off of my mind.
Suddenly, all too familiar pain came rushing back to me. I quickly found the main source of my pain, I seemed to have been cut in my stomach where my cancer apparently was. Another very likely cause of the pain were these damned tubes that were shoved carelessly up my muzzle without my permission! They were hurting me, but they were most likely used to help me breathe during the operation. I turned my head and looked towards the side of the room where a window was just starting to let the morning light bleed into the room, lighting it up with a soft orange glow. The next thing I happened to notice was a doctor sitting on a chair on the other side of the hospital room.
He was... crying? Yes. That same doctor who looked angrily at me was crying, but what could he be crying about? Only one thing was certain at the time; he must have not known that I was awake yet, otherwise he would not have been crying like he was.
Right, doctor crying... that's cool I guess, and trust me; I won't bore you with any more of this. So I was a bit worried being around him, and I had a bad feeling. A wise person once told me that you should never base your arguments on feelings, but this was different... he was really giving me a bad feeling. For the moment, it felt better to pretend like I was still asleep and not alert him of my conscious presence. All I had to do was stay still and not make a noise. Easy, right? I mean, how could it not be?
It wasn't.
I'm a pony that happens to move a lot in my bed. Be it because of my ADHD or not, I move many times while I'm still awake to try to get into a comfortable position, after a while, it ends up feeling not as good. That was exactly what was happening. The position I was in was starting to drive me nuts, but I had to do my best to keep quiet while not hurting my body by turning too fast. I had to plan this out wisely; I had to move quietly and find the best position, so I would not have to move again. To shorten it up, I tried to sit up, and I felt a lot of pain, so I made a loud sound. As much as I wished that this was like a movie, (where the doctor is an idiot and doesn't hear anything) it wasn't. This of course alerted the doctor who almost immediately rushed to my side. I was getting confused.
''What's the matter?'' I asked him. ''Is there something...?''
''Shhh,'' he interrupted. ''Don't worry! You don't need to worry. Neither do I, in fact.''
''Ooookay... so before passing out, I heard something about a cancer, and I've been cut, then sewed back in the stomach, so should I assume it's gone now? What's the result? Was is successfully removed? It was, wasn't it? So when can I be expected to leave? Later this week or something? That sounds pretty good to me, you know?''
His lips were shaking as if debating what to say. His face wore a mixed expression of pain and confusion. You could tell he was trying hard to hide it.
''Well...'' he started. ''the truth of the matter is far worse than I had originally thought. The cancer seems to be rather close to your lung, and it seems to have grown quite a bit in size. Had I proceeded with the operation, I could have removed a piece of your lung or heart, it was much too risky to do the operation so close to your vital organs."
''You've got to be kidding me! That totally sucks!''
''I also thought that I had lost you for good last night. You lost control of all your bodily functions. You weren't even breathing for a time, and the tumour seemed to have doubled in size!''
''Whoa, whoa, whoa!'' I was getting even more confused. ''You just told me that it was cancer, now you are telling me its a tumour, stop playing with me here!''
''If it is what I think it might be, then it might be simpler to remove than I thought...'' the doctor attempted a smile.
''What the buck?! You just said it was too close to remove! Cut it out!''
''Look'' he took off his glasses and stared giving me a serious look.''Let's try to get along here and not make this harder than it has to be. You and I both know very well the cause of all of these problems.''
''You have no right to threaten me! What are you even talking about anyway? If you know something that I should, then you have the right to enlighten me, otherwise you are wasting everypony's time!"
The doctor's patience ended there. ''You have no authority in this hospital, nor do you have the right to demand me what to do. All I know is that I have my ways of getting information, and one way or another, I will get it.''
''Information? I was asking you for information! I-ugh! I don't even understand what you want from me!'' I yelled.
''Tell me about last night. What did you do and how did you do it?''
''I don't know!'' I yelled. ''Give me a minute to think!''
''Alright, I see no point in wasting my time with you any more. You want to do this the hard way, then by all means, let it be so.'' he fixed his coat and rebuilt his posture, then he gave me a disturbing smile. ''I'm afraid that I am going to have to perform some advanced and complicated tests. You will be relocated to another area of the hospital. Now of course, I do need proper permission.''
"If that's the case, then no!'' I attempted to rebuild my posture to mock him, resulting in my body yelling at me in pain.''Permission is not granted! I do not trust you at all, I am not being relocated and most certainly not with you! I would like to see another doctor!''
''Oh yes, I'm sure you would. But, oh, look here! It seems that, unfortunately, you are not of legal age to make decisions of this great importance.'' he shot me another mean grin and pulled out a few papers from the drawer. ''Oh, how interesting... in this case, it would be up to the parents to decide. Who wouldn't want what's best for their little daughter?''
''I- what?''
''Such a shame, I really did not want it to have to come to this...''
''Why are you doing this? I'm confused as to what's even going on!''
''I'm a very patient doctor, and because of that I will give you one last chance to explain to me, in detail, what you did last night. If you tell me this then I can remove this and- yeah...''
''I... I don't know.'' I replied softly.
''Thank you.'' he smiled and placed his hand on my shoulder. ''You just made the whole process a hell of alot easier.'' he shoved me down with his hand and made his way to the door He literally shoved me down! ''I will now bring your parents in. I'll be right back."
Okay, so now I was freaking pissed. It may have seemed like he had good intentions, but he was so desperate to get this irrelevant information, and then he shoved me because of it! There was certainly more to it then what he was saying. I did not trust him, if I even could trust him from the start. All of this was just because of some stupid thing that I had done after I fell asleep? Did he mean my dream? I could hardly remember it, what could have been so important about that? The dream felt more like a distant memory, and this could have been exactly what the doctor wanted to know. All I knew was that I did not like this doctor, and that was good enough reason for me not to tell him, at least for now. I felt like this whole hospital was like a rigged prison. I felt no safety, not anywhere near here at least.
That was when I made my decision, I would escape this rat-hole of a hospital, whether or not my body felt right. It had to wait for later though as my parents would be entering in with the doctor. Just then, the door opened and I was ready to explain.
''Hello again, Elegance.'' he said in a professional voice.
''Ooooooh! How's my little sweetheart?'' My mother asked me. ''Is that bad cancie poo-poo out of you?''
''Actually mother, this doctor was just about to-''
''Miss Mary Lavalière, it's good to finally meet you in person! As your daughter was going to tell you, I have important news about her.''
''Oh?'' she asked. ''Is she okay? Will she be all right?''
''That last one is entirely up to you.'' he continued. ''As it seems, there is carcinoma found on her pulmonary system. This may cause problems with consciousness at times, and I fear that it may become worse if not treated immediately. Tell me, have you noticed any unnatural stillness after Élégance has fallen asleep?''
''She does appear to be rather still, I thought it was normal and never really gave it much thought. Actually yes, she is really still, now that I think about it. It's kind of odd.'' she replied.
''How interesting...'' he grinned at me. ''Is there anything else you notice?''
''Wait.'' she paused for a second to think. ''Nope.''
The doctor's face changed, almost as if he had been beaten by a monster, and that was more or less true. Regardless, he still had his cards to play.
''So I actually need your permission to relocate her to a different area of the hospital to have a slight problem fixed. The operation cannot begin until the problem is resolved. I would've asked her for permission, but she's not old enough to make such a decision. All I need is your approval.''
''No!'' I yelled. ''Don't do it!''
''Think about it.'' the doctor said in defence. ''I know that we might not get along too well, but just think... if this is not resolved, she will die. I know that a good and responsible parent such as yourself would never allow that to happen to their daughter.''
Both, me and the doctor waited for a response from her. Finally, she came up with the solution.
''I'm sorry, but he's right... I'm sure there's a good reason why you don't want to be moved, but I can't toy with your life like that. I'm willing to try whatever it takes to help you.''
I just stared at her, eyes wide open. How could she possibly trust him over me? Her own daughter!
The doctor smiled. ''It is done.''
''But!''
Me and the doctor looked up at her in surprise.
''If,'' she continued. ''she is injured or worse, then you'd better get ready for a world of hell and believe me, if it's not available, I'll be the next-best thing!''
''You have nothing to fear.'' replied the doctor.
''Mom, where's dad?''
''Oh, well he's at work I think.'' she answered.
''What?!'' I yelled. ''I'm apparently at the verge of death and he goes to work?''
''Okay'' he stopped me. ''She's just feeling grumpy at the moment. You can't blame her really, but the best thing would be to let her go for now. I'll call you if anything of urgence happens. In fact, this is the number to call to reach the room we will be relocating her to.''
Without warning, the doctor handed her a card, then quickly opened the door and motioned for her to exit. She was hesitant, but she ended up leaving soon after. The doctor then softly closed the door, then turned to me, he was giving me that same evil grin from before. Finally, after an awkwardly long pause, he spoke to me.
''How does it feel, now that you know that even your own family has abandoned you?''
''Let's just skip to the point. Why do you want to know about last night?''
''To heal you of course.''
''Why else?'' I asked more demandingly.
''There is no other reason.''
''That's horse crap!''
''That's disgusting imagery, but it won't change the fact that what I'm saying is true! I know what I want for you!''
''Why is this more important that the tumor?'' I asked.
''I guess you'll soon find out, in the meantime I'll be setting up your new room. It looks like shit, smells like shit, it might as well be shit. How's that for imagery, that is what you wanted isn't it?'' he chuckled, then left the room; this immediately began my escape plan.
I sat up straight, despite my body screaming at me not to. The first thing that I needed to do was to get rid of these tubes shoved up my nostrils. I should have removed them slowly, but in my moment of panic and with my focus being nothing more than to escape, I just took a deep breath and yanked them out as hard and fast as I could. They came accompanied with blood. My body immediately reacted from the pain, and now my nose was furiously emitting blood all over the place.
After the pain started to die, I gathered up the nerve to continue my plan of escape. Instead of getting up, I knew I was too weak to do that, so I decided that the best thing to do (or so I thought) was to roll off the bed and forcibly crawl my way to the door. It was one of those small rolling beds with a metal body with a black cushioned top and only a white sheet covering it. I rolled as close to the side of the bed as I could and hung my hoof over, preparing for the drop. That moment came much sooner than I had expected as the bed lost its balance and fell on its side, slamming against the ground, unfortunately crushing my hoof. Tears were streaming down my face. I almost screamed, but I knew that if I did, someone would find me, and the whole plan would be over, rendering all of my current pain and efforts useless. I pushed my face off the floor. My whole face was probably bruised, but I could not see myself to know, neither did I really care. All I know was my muzzle was probably broken. The blood was going down my throat while dripping down my face as well. I took a gasp of air and tried to force my hoof out from under the bed. I had no idea if it was broken or not, I highly doubted it, but I was not quite sure and the rest of the pain I was feeling made it not really matter as much. I used my other hoof to push the bed off enough to wiggle my trapped one free. It hurt the most when I got it out and the previously trapped blood started flowing through it again, luckily it did not look as bad as I thought it would. My further examination would have to come later, as I still had to go through with my escape. All of this unintended pain and blood loss was starting to make me light-headed and dizzy.
I tried to use my hurt hoof as least as possible as I crawled my way across the room. This event was so shocking because it was nothing compared to what I was used to. I felt like I wanted to throw up, but I also felt like I was about to pass out from the blood I was losing. I still managed to keep going and desperately kept trying to make my way across the room until I was close to the door. By this time, my vision was about to give. Through this, I still managed to see the door open and watch a shape walk in. There was no doubt about it, it as the doctor again. I hear him yelling at me and I knew at this point that I had lost and that my whole escape plan had failed miserably. All I managed to do was cause more damage to myself.
The next thing I saw was a slight light in the distance. It got bigger, then started to form shapes through it. It was something that looked like a room. I know! You'd think I'd be high on some crazy drugs or something to see that! I mean come on! A picture of a room forming on a circular light? I don't even know... It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I could see the end of a bed, a bit of a counter and a bit of the roof. What was strange was that this room seemed familiar, like I had been there before. What was even stranger was the fact that I was being pushed towards it by some invisible force behind me at a pretty fast speed. I was about halfway to this mysterious light when I felt a slight resistance pulling behind me as I was being carried forward. The resistance grew stronger until it started pulling me back, then the light disappeared and I was left to see nothing but black. So yeah, in the end I guess the whole point of this weird light was pretty much pointless.
I suddenly awoke in a strange place. The walls were metallic,rusty, and just as the doctor had implied, it looked like someone took a dump on his hoof, then smeared it all across the wall. I guess he was telling the truth about something. There were computers, disturbing anatomical posters on the wall and many confusing machines everywhere.
''Well, well, well. Look who finally chose to get up. Did you enjoy your dream?''
I looked around quickly and almost instantly found where the sound was coming from. THAT. BUCKING. DOCTOR.
''So,'' he started. ''How did you manage to do that much harm to yourself?''
''The stupid hospital bed lost balance and fell on my hoof.'' I replied.
He paused and looked at me. ''Did this lack of balance happen before, or after you pulled out the tubes from your nose?''
''What?''
''You ended up across the room. Don't deny it. You were trying to escape, weren't you?''
''Yes.''
''I knew it! And you accused me of lying abou- what you said yes? Oh,'' he coughed. ''At least you were honest. So on to the next thing. Why is your secret about what you do after you fall asleep such a big deal to you?
''ME making a big deal?!'' I yelled. ''It's only a big deal because you made it that way! You threatened me, shoved me and give me angry looks, and you expect me to tell you?! You're the one making a 'deal' about anything!''
''I did not 'shove' you I tried to lay you back down, it was done with more force than I intended, though. Also, you say I'm making it a bigger deal, yet it's apparently a big enough deal to you that you almost end your life because of an escape plan...'' he took a pause and sighed. ''One of your hooves were weakened after the fall, I put a cast on it to help it solidify.
''Wait for it!'' I thought.
''I also happened to notice that you were very still after you passed out, you were also starting to run out of breath. But that's not really important right now...''
''All right.'' I sighed. ''You win... you may ask me what you need to know. But can it wait until tomorrow?''
''Good, glad you finally understand the problem here. Sure, tomorrow we can begin the actual procedure and the excessive questioning. Before, however, I would like you to ask you one simple question. How did you do it?''
''You mean fall asleep, right?''
''Not exactly... I meant after that...''
I thought carefully about how to answer. That light that I saw, was that what he wanted? I chose to go the safe path and not tell him.
''You... you mean my dream?''
''No. Actually, sure, sure. Go on, tell me about your dream. Tell me as much as you remember.''
''By what I can remember, my friends came over; we helped with my friend's yard and went to an amusement park, and I rode an awesome ride.''
He wrote down something on his paper, then he spoke to me again.
''How much of the dream do you remember?''
''All of it. I'm pretty sure the reason I forgot earlier was because of the stress of the situation.'' I replied.
''Okay, because usually you never remember the full dream. Tell me, do you recall the name of these friends of yours?''
''Uhh...''
''Just take a guess.''
''Ss...Strawberry, and Lightning?
''Excellent. It's pretty late right now, so why don't you get some shut eye? This might also help me find the cause of this tumour growth after you fall asleep.''
''Fine...''
Even with the doctor in the same room as me, as freaky as that was, I still managed to fall asleep quickly. And as I had earlier that day after I passed out, that light was visible, and I was quickly advancing towards it. There was no turning back this time, but curiosity was getting to me anyway. I wanted to see what was on the other side, and I was quickly about to find out.
It was another nice day in Ponyville. Maybe not as great as yesterday thanks to the many clouds, but it was still nice. I got out of bed, then made it. At that moment, I had two big issues on my mind; The first being that I was hungry, and the second being that I felt like I was forgetting something important.
My stomach was yelling at me, so I made my way down the stairs. I entered my kitchen that should have been cleaned a few weeks ago, trotted up to the fridge and opened it. Right then, I quickly remembered what the important thing that I forgotten about was.
Right in front of my eyes, there was a great invention called 'fridge', inside the said fridge, there was absolutely nothing apart from broken bread slices and leftover soup. By ‘leftover soup’ I mean so old that it most likely had mold growing on its beard. There was no doubt about it in my mind at this point, I needed to go shopping. I would have tried to delay it again, but the truth was that I had already done that enough as it was.
Okay, so this was my plan: 1. Run to the store. 2. Find some crap. 3. Convince myself not to end my life because of how boring and awful this is. 4. Run back home, sit down, get drunk and never speak about this again. 5. (Optional) End my life.
Simple right? Of course it was. Not only that, but it was foolproof. Of course, as good as my luck was recently, I opened the door and realized that my plan was not quite as ‘foolproof’ as I though.
“Ey! Hao’s it goin’, a?”
I’ll give you three seconds to guess who that was. If you answered anything else than ‘Lightning’ or ‘I don’t like when the author makes me participate in stories', then that’s pretty sad.
“How long have you been at my door?” I asked.
“Oh, you no. Not long. Eheheheh.” he replied.
“Ah.” I rolled my eyes and started to make my way to the store.
“Where ‘ya going anywai?” He ran up to catch up to me.
“The store” I sighed.
“Gai.” He said. “Why y’goin’ there?”
“I'm out of food and I'm hungry.” I replied.
“I'm hungry too. Maibe I kan help u with dat?” He winks at me.
“Okay, go away now Lightning.” I said hoarsely.
“Why not, eigh?” He looked at me confused. “Ther-sa restaurant right dare?”
“Oh... uh, sure why not, I can spare a bit of time.” I laughed nervously.
So we went to this small restaurant. It did not look like anything too special, although he told me that the food tasted amazing. With him, who knows what that could have meant. Nevertheless, it was a kind act for him to offer to treat me to breakfast after telling him that I was hungry. But one must wonder why.
“So, what brought this on?” I asked.
“I dunno.”
“Oh, okay then.” I said still curious.
The waitress came to our table.
“Hillo! May I take your orders, or do you need a few minutes?”
“I still need a moment.” I replied.
“Hey Elegance, can we say we are new couples.” he whispered to me.
“No.”
“Aww, I want-ed 2 get the couple’s discount.” He said a bit disappointed.
“Oh, wait? Discounts? In that case, I don’t mind. Just this time though."
A few minutes later, the same waitress came back.
“Are you ready for your orders?” asked the waitress.
“Myes, Iy’d like le 2 egg, 3 sausage with sides of toasts, burnt toast and home cut fried potato slices.” He ordered.
“What the hay, Lightning! You eat meat?! I'm pretty sure I just heard you ask for three sausages!
“R’lax dood, they never serve you REAL meat here, its actually chemically processed things with artificial meat flavouring.” He said, trying to sound intelligent.
“Oh, joy...” I rolled my eyes at him. “I'll just have a salad with hay fries, please.” Lightning gave me an expectant look. “Oh... and can we get the couple’s discount?”
“Oh boy! A new couple in town, how cute!” The waitress yelled. “That’s fine. I'll be right back!”
The waitress ran at a very fast pace towards the kitchen. I thought about the worst that might have came out of this mistake.
“Ow!” suddenly yelled Lightning.
“I didn't even hit you this time.”
“its not thate.” He replied. “My headache is just acting up again. I’ll b right back k?”
Lightning then started running towards the men’s room. After a few minutes, Lightning came back to the table and sat down.
“Feeling better?” I asked him.
“Ya. I just threw a bit of water in my face. Feelin’ a bit better.”
“Good, that’s good to hear.”
“Go! Go! Go!” I heard behind me. Suddenly, a bunch of ponies came to us and surrounded our table.
“Bonjour, madame et monsieur. Dis iz juste a piese I like tu call ‘Ze couple's songe’”
This weird french pony started to play the violin that he was carrying, then another pony joined him to help harmonize the music. I gave Lightning a ‘You’re dead after this’ glare.
This is a song, yes it is, and I know that it will suit you just looking, makes it obvious that everything’s just perfect between you two Everyday and every night Everything will be all ri-hiiight! TONIGHT! I will love YOU with all my MIGHT!
Yes it’s true! (Being with you!) You make me better when I’m (aaaAAAll blue!) Yes, it’s true, I mean it! Even though before I never seen it! I just want to be with YOOOOOOOOU~!
The music started to die down a bit.
“Well then...” I said. “At least it’s ov-”
Drums start to play and by this time, I'm pretty sure the whole restaurant was singing with them.
OOOOOH! IT’S TRUE!! (Being with you!) You always make me better when I’m (AAWAHAALL BLUUUE!) Yes it’s it true, I mean it! Even though you used to not believe it! IIII Just waaaaant.......... TO BE WITH YOOOOOOOUUU!
Then the room’s focus was on us, and everyone started clapping at ‘us’ as the musicians made their way back.
“Oops” Lightning chuckled. “ I'm dead now, right?”
“Not yet, but believe me, it won’t be an easy death.”
“Hillo!! How was that? Not too embarrassing? Of course, it wasn't, what am I saying?” The waitress put down two plates with our meals, except now they were triple the size we ordered.”Here’s your meal, enjoy!” She gingerly skipped away.
“Heh, at least I was right about the food.” Said Lightning.
“Shush you.”
We tried our best to eat as much as we could to not seem rude. After we ate, the waitress came to our table with her usual happy smile.
“Hillo! Are you guys about ready to head off?” She asked.
“Yeah, we should get going now.” Lightning said.
“Okay, here’s your bill. Oh and just to give you a head start, Pinkie Pie’s on her way here now. She said she was going to throw the ‘biggest, best-est and all around best couple’s party ever’.”
“Oh no! Lightning, we need to get out of here NOW before Pinkie Pie announces us a couple to the whole town!” I said quickly.
“I know! I know! Let me just get my cash!”
“Hurry!”
“Here! Just take it, keep the change!” Lightning yelled.
“Take the back door and good luck starting your relationship!” The waitress yelled.
The waitress looked at the amount that Lightning had given her and gasped.
“Wow! If only everyone was as kind with tips!
After we ate, me and Lightning made our way to the store. Believe it or not, he actually came with me. Afterwards, he accompanied me back to my house and helped me put my food up and remove the bad soup (Baaad soup). I had to go do a few more errands, of course, before the day came to an end, so I had to ask Lightning to leave.
“Well Lightning, this was fun, thank you for joining me today.” I said.
“Yeah, it was pretty fun. I hope we can do it again sometime.” He replied.
“Oh, yes. Well, I'm off to the library, and I haven’t forgotten about breakfast, expect for me to get you back for that incident.”
Lightning nodded and started walking away, then he turned back to me.
“By the way, I noticed this morning that you were not looking too well.” He walked closer to me.
“Oh, that was probably because of the lack of food in my stomach.” I replied.
“I doubt it... It’s not only today, but recently you've been acting different.” He paused for a second. “Are you ashamed of Strawberry, or me?”
“No! Not at all!” I said, shocked that he would even suggest such a thing.
“Then what is it?” He asked.
“It’s just these dreams okay? I don’t want to talk about it just yet.”
“You don’t trust us do you? Your friends, that is?”
“No, it's not that! I'm just not read-”
“Then why hide it from us?” He asked more urgently.
“I’ll tell you, just not now, okay?”
“All right, come talk to us any time when you are ready.” Then he turned and walked away quickly.
I was confused as to why Lightning had done that. Lightning had been so kind to me all these years, and then he was acting all worried about something. I mean, sure, these dreams, they were all very weird, but that does not mean that he had to get worked up about it.
I made my way over to Twilight’s library, I then had idea that I would ask Twilight about these dreams. Seconds after knocking on the door, Twilight opened it.
“Oh, hello there Elegance. Have you come to return your book?” Twilight asked.
“And get a new one. However, there is something I need to ask you.”
“Oh? All right, come on in and take a seat anywhere.”
I walked into Twilight’s tree home and made my way to her couch. I took a seat and waited.
“You don't need to knock on the door during weekdays, by the way. It is a public library after all. So, what did you want to ask me?” Twilight asked me.
“Well, you see; I've been having these crazy dreams.” I started.
“Dreams?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, and what happens in these dreams?” She looked at me with interest.
“It’s always the same place, continuing where I left off the night before.” I took a second to think. “It’s interesting; I'm always in this... horrible hospital. And there is this doctor who always treats me badly, threatens me and whatnot. I don't really know his name.
“Hold on, hold on. You said he was a doctor?” She looked at me with a shocked expression.
“Yeah, but in my dreams. I don't know the guy in real life.”
“Okay.”
“I apparently have this sort of cancer in the dream that grows when I'm asleep or something like that.”
“So you want me to stop you from dreaming?”
“It’s... more than that... When I wake up in the morning I am exhausted and feel like I've been awake all night. What’s stranger is that these dreams feel like an actual memory. Except a memory that I cannot remember much about.”
“That really is interesting. I've never heard of any condition like that. Dreams don't usually keep going from where they left off, nor is it normal to feel exhausted after waking up. I'm not too sure that it's something to worry about, but I'll see what I can do.” She took a pause and looked around the room. “Tell you what, I will do as much research on the subject as I can, I will be going entirely off of what you told me. Is there anything else you would like to add real quick?” She asked.
“Nothing that I can remember.” I replied.
“Right, I need to do some work on the subject before tomorrow. Come around at 10:00 and I'll tell you the results of what I have found. Until then, just try to relax and not to stress out too much about this, that could end up making the dreams much worse.”
“Thank you Twilight, and good luck!”
“You seem like you'll need it more, Elegance.”
It felt good to know that somepony might finally be able to help me out with this weird problem that I've been having. If there was anyone in town who can find the solution to this problem, it would have been her. Right then, I was focusing on the last few words that Twilight had said. I thought that Twilight had a good point, and that it was not a really good idea to stress out too much about the situation.
Suddenly, while I was walking, somepony hit me hard on the side, pushing me to the ground and making me slide a few feet. I got up and looked at my side that scraped the ground. It did not seem like much harm was done.
I looked around to find the source of my pain. To my surprise, I found the same light blue mare with a rainbow mane that rode with me and Lightning on the Desert Screamer. She seemed to be equally shocked from the impact. After a few moments, she got up and turned to me.
“I didn't mean to hit you! You're okay, right?”
“Yeah, I'm fine. What were you doing flying around that fast anyway?” I asked her.
“Uh, duh? Flying slow is boring! I almost pulled off my new whirlaway stunt, that is until I crashed."
“Good point, but you should be more careful; you could actually get someone hurt!” I warned her.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be more careful next time, blah, blah. Now where are you off to?”
“I'm looking to have some fun to ease my mind for a little while.” I replied to her.
“What kind of fun?”
“Real fun. The kind that will really calm me down.”
“Awesome! In that case, you can come to Sweet Apple Acres and also meet my friend Applejack. We were just going to have a drinking contest!” She explained. “Can you believe that she thinks that she can handle more than me without throwing up or passing out?”
“Bah! She’s crazy! I bet that even I can beat her!”
“Oh! Now you HAVE to prove it to me. If you do beat her or better yet, me, I’ll be impressed. Let’s go!”
I thought that this was going to be a pretty good way to cool down and forget about the day. I have drank alcohol before, but never had I gotten myself into an actual drinking contest and the way Lighting had described his experience with that yesterday made it sound like even more fun.
We arrived at Sweet Apple Acres, and we went to the back of Applejack’s barn where a whole table flooded with drinks were sitting. My body was telling me no, but my head was telling me to go for it. So After we went to the back, Rainbow Dash quickly introduced me to her.
“She says that she could easily kick your ass at this!” She told her.
“Aw yea? Is that so? Well, y’all better be ready ‘cuz I ain't about to lose this one!”
“We'll see about that!” Rainbow Dash said.
“Since y’all are the guest, ya can count us down!”
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Three, two, one...” I started.
Applejack had adjusted her hat, she looked serious about this. Rainbow Dash’s hoof was very close to her first mug.
“Go!” I yelled and quickly grabbed my own mug.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash were going pretty quickly with their drinks. I was going at a much slower speed, and Rainbow Dash seemed to notice this.
“I am disappointed Elegance. I thought you were good at this?” Rainbow Dash stated.
“Oh, I'm not done yet!”
I quickly gulped down the rest of the mug and grabbed another one, drinking it quickly and trying to at least stay even with them. With every glass, I was starting to feel more of the effects. I most certainly was not drunk at this point, but I was still feeling it pretty good.
Time went on, and I was doing things that I was going to regret the next morning, but I wanted to prove myself.
“Aww yeah! Another mug! I can hardly feel it, and my prununciation is perfect still!” I yelled into the air.
“Haha, you ccant even handle another mug! Aple-jaqu come to my playce after, I gots so many thing plan.” Rainbow Dash said.
“Hahaha, gud won sugahcube, i cain’t fly remember?”
Much of the night was a blur from that part on. I do remember a few parts after that though, like how Applejack wanted to be a model and Rainbow Dash started singing about how she hates green ponies. I seem to recall in surprising great detail how we started to show each other how cool we were... with our fists. Then I remember that I was too drunk to get home on my own, but me (being as cool as I was) accepted help from nopony. The last thing I remember about that night, was me blurting something out about dust and then my vision turning white and fuzzy as I fell to my side on the ground.
I jolted myself awake. Man, I hated those types of dreams. You know, the type of dream where you feel like you are falling? Those types of dreams rarely happened to me, and so it shocked me. The thing that really jumped me, however, was the fact that when I opened my eyes, the doctor was above me and was staring at me.
''Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't scare you did I?"
"No! Of course not!" I thought to myself." I just jumped twice in a row, and I swear my heart felt like it was about to stop! But noooo..... of course he didn't scare me!"
"Uh, well anyway, I have something to show you." He said.
"Here we go..." I thought to myself.
He walked up to a desk and picked up a folder sitting on it.
"Right here I have-"
Riiing!
"Ugh, sorry, just a second, the phone..."
Riiing!
He threw the folder back on the desk and headed to the phone.
"Hmm, I don't know this number..." he thought for a second.
Riiing!
"Oh right, your parents!" he said.
"Leave it!"
"What? But they're your parents..."
Riiing!
"I don't care," I said. "Just leave it."
"Okay..." he let the phone ring until it became silent. "You really should give them a chance. Maybe they can explain."
"They have nothing to say; they proven everything already, they said it all yesterday. My mother trusts a stranger over me, and my father is too stupid to get out of work to come see me at the hospital. As I said, they have no way to justify what they've done. Now, what were you saying before the phone call?"
"Right. Last night, while you were asleep, I took a few x-rays of this tumour of yours," he searched his folder and pulled out a picture. "This picture was taken about five minutes after you fell asleep." He passed me an x-rayed picture of my chest with a neatly drawn red circle at one specific part.
"Now, inside the circle is-" he started.
"I know what it is!"
"Yeah..." There was a short pause, before he continued. "Now here is a picture of the same tumour fifteen minutes after you fell asleep.
He searched through the folder some more before pulling out another picture and passing it to me. The picture looked the same, for the most part, except for one detail. The same tumour had grown significantly in size.
"My theory," said my doctor. " Is that the more you are asleep, the more this tumour grows. I am assuming this because this is practically the exact thing that happened yesterday when you were very still, and I thought I had lost you. So I have reason to believe that these 'dreams' that you have are connected in some way with the tumour."
"Great, that's good for you. You apparently have all the proof you need, so why have you not started the procedure yet? Can't you remove it?"
"Yes, removing it would be easy enough to do, but the problem is that I need to know the main thing that causes the dreams to start. I don't want to guess and risk putting you in danger."
"What do you want to know."
"Why don't you just tell me the last thing you remember in your dream before waking up?"
''Uh...''
''Never mind, ignore that question. Just in general, what do you remember about your dream?'' he asked.
''I woke up hungry...''
''Hungry. Good, good! Keep going.''
''I had no food available to eat, so I had to go shopping. On the way, I met... Lightning, he offered to buy me breakfast at a restaurant.''
''Lightning is the one with the accent?''
''Yeah... ever since the day I met h...hey! How do you know that?'' I asked.
''You told me about him already. He seems nice.''
''Oh, did I? Well anyway, he chose to go shopping with me, then dropped me off at my place.''
''Is there anything going on between you two?''
''Uh, ew?''
''Good, that makes things a bit easier.''
''What?''
''Keep going.''
''Right... so then I went to Twilight's house, and she told me that she would do some research on the weird dr... ow!''
''The weird what?''
''I... don't know...''
''I'm pretty sure you said 'the weird dreams'.''
''Oh, did I?''
''Keep going.''
''Well, there was not much after that. I met Rainbow Dash, then went over to Applejack's for a drinking competition. I lost I think... then I passed out. After that I saw... wait! That's why it felt like I was falling down when I woke up.''
''What did you see after that?''
''Nothing, that's it.''
''Are you sure? It seemed like you were going to tell me what you saw after you pass out.''
''Uh, no... no I don't think so, it seems like your not the best at remembering things, which is odd considering you're a doctor, and you should not be forgetting things this often.''
''Okay.'' he let out a sigh. ''Are you sure that's all you remember?''
''Yes, that's pretty much it.''
''All right, in that case I will ask you a few questions about your friends. Tell me about this Twilight character of yours. Who is she?''
''She's the town's librarian. There are also rumours that she is the personal student of Princess Celestia.''
''And you went up to her to ask about your dreams, right? Now my real question is this. Why would you go to her to ask her about your dreams?''
''Dreams? Oh yeah! I guess I had dreams in my dreams, and those dreams were stressing out my daily life there. Dream-Ception, much? I think another reason I went to her is because I trusted those rumours about her, and realized that if there was anyone who could help me, it would be Twilight.''
''And tell me about the dreams within your dreams. What were they about?''
''Oh boy, we're going big here... um... I... oh, I don't know. Thinking is giving me a headache!''
''Did you tell Twilight about your dream?''
''I, uh... yeah... yes I did.''
''Good, now try to remember, what did you tell her? Think as hard as you can. Picture yourself back in your dream. You are in her house, you told Twilight, and she asked you what your dreams were about. What do you say?''
''I told her something like... yeah, it always continues at the same place as the night before... I said it's... always in some horrible hospital and... there is a docto- Holy shit!''
''I know...''
''But how could I have been having those dreams, in my dreams?! I thought that my dreams were real and that the dream, that's not really a dream, that I'm living now is... my brain hurts!''
''Calm down! I know... reality is leaking into your dreams. Let's not think about it for now any more. Did Twilight find anything out?''
''Nothing.''
''Good, let talk a bit about Lightning now.''
''Lightning is a friend of mine that I've had for years. He often stops by my house at random hours where I'm unprepared and sees me for completely random reasons.''
''What I find interesting is the use of the present tense in your sentence. It's almost as if you are saying that your friend comes and visits you every day.''
''Like I said, they seem like realistic memories.''
''Yeah, but you speak about these 'memories' as if they are an actual part of your life." He said.
There was a long minute of silence in the room. I was closely examining the doctor; I knew something was not right. His head was hanging lower than usual, and he looked like he was in deep thought. Finally, he lifted his head up, turned to me and spoke.
''I'm very sorry, there is no way to approach this subject nicely.''
''Tell me, what is it?''
''I'm pretty sure you know what I am going to ask you.''
''It doesn't matter, ask me it anyway.''
''This world of yours...'' he took a pause and thought carefully about the words he was about to say. ''Would you be willing to let go of this fantasy world to save your life?''
I was expecting the question for a while now, but him actually saying it caught me off guard.
''I... I don't know...''
''I know what you are thinking right now. Getting rid of this world that you've grown so attached to, is like removing a big part of you. However, if I leave you to your dreams, then you'll just keep on getting worse... I hate to say this, I really do, but at the rate this is going, I don't expect you to have much more than a month left. It saddens me greatly in a way, but at the same time, it makes me happy that I'll... uh, that I'll know you'll be fine.''
I was instantly faced with a big, life-changing decision. If I chose to keep this world, then I would have grown weaker every day until the cancer got so big that it would kill me, but if I had removed it, then I would have never seen my wonderful friends again. This whole life that I had grown so used to and worked so hard to achieve would be gone forever. It was a really hard decision, but it was better than dying.
''I accept.''
''Great! You'll be given a series of five treatments over the next few days that will target different aspects of your dream world. However, first I need you to think. Really think. Is there anything else that you remember from your dream? Anything at all?''
''No, uh wait... come to think about it, Lightning did lose his accent at one point.''
''Oh, uh... that's strange, but that's not exactly what I meant. It's probably just your subconscious playing tricks on you. The best would be to ignore him for now.''
''Maybe... oh my gosh! The light!''
''Light?''
''Yes! There is this weird light in all of my dreams. Just after I fall asleep and right before I wake up... I go to... no! You see; I fall asleep, and I feel like I'm getting pulled... yes! No... I...''
''Keep going, concentrate hard on it! If you forget about it, you probably won't remember it again! Just like earlier when you had trouble remembering!''
''I'm getting pulled by this... light and... then as I get closer to this light, I... ouch! This hurts! Why does it hurt trying to remember?''
''Because you were never supposed to remember this, yet you are trying to remember an otherwise inaccessible memory. Keep going!''
''The... light! I get closer and... I-I see it! I go up to this window-ish thing and it has a picture of my bedroom in the dream and I ugh! I don't know; I go to it and. Ugh! This hurts, it freaking hurts! I give up!''
I breathe heavily for a few minutes.
''That information will do well for now."
"So what does this mean for me?" I asked. "What's the next step going to be?"
"It won't be any different than what I said," he replied. "This treatment is going to be set to target the light that starts the dream. What I hope it will do is make it more difficult to pass through the 'window', as you call it. It will also try to resist you from being pulled, so that you may examine your surroundings with much more ease. Finally, it should help you to remember more of your dream. Now I shall go and get this treatment ready for you. I have the equipment needed down here, so it should be done within the hour. In the meantime, is there anything I can get you, like food or something?''
"How about moving me to a better room?" I asked.
"I would have maybe allowed you to go back because of good behaviour, but now that I more-or-less know what this is, it is no longer possible." He explained. "Besides, I'm not even sure that I would move you back if I could. You've tried to escape, and I have found you passed out on the floor in the middle of the hospital room. I fear that if I put you back, you would just attempt to escape again."
"That reminds me..." I lifted an eyebrow with curiosity. "Tell me about this place here. Why do you have it, what is it used for and why is it in the condition that it is currently in?"
His eyes widened in surprise at the question and thought about his answer for a second.
"This place is in its current condition because it is not used very often."
"I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it." I replied impatiently.
"Well, what do you want me to say? I gave you the answer."
"While I don't entirely doubt that it's one of the reasons, I can't help feeling that there's more..."
"You should not base your arguments on 'feelings' you may have." He gave me a quizzing look. "Go on though, give me your theories and arguments on your reasoning."
"Well, if this place is hardly used, why would you put the most expensive equipment down here? You said it yourself, that the things needed to get the treatments done were down here. Not to mention the fact that you just said it was one of the reasons that I could not go back to my previous hospital room."
"That's actually a good point Évalière. No, you're actually right though, there is something more. The reason as to why the machines are actually down here is a longer story though. It basically involves the fact that ponies did not like them because they were much too advanced for back when they were made. The machines had a very high success rate of 89.7% of curing the certain disease that the patients had. Rumours began to form about the machines saying that they were too good to be true. Due to popular demand, we told the public that we had taken the machines away, but in reality, we just hid them down here. I don't consider it much of a bad thing though.
"Why are you trusting me with this information?" I asked the doctor.
"You probably would have tried to find out anyway."
"True."
There was a short time where we did not say a word. The doctor was staring at a clipboard, and I was thinking about what I had just been told.
"So, am I going to be treated with this machine then?" I asked him.
"Oh, haha! No! That would be most inefficient. You can't just zap away cancer with the machine you, know! Goodness, if it were that simple, people would not still be d-... The thing that you must understand is that your cancer is different from the most, and I think... I hope, you know that by now."
"So... I'm, not going to be treated by this machine?"
"Nope."
"All-right."
"Not that one at least."
"Ah."
"Yup."
"This puts me all the way back to square one." I told him in a slightly more annoyed tone. "This machine, is there any known side effects?"
"Up until now, there has never been an unsuccessful attempt. It also has no known side effects."
"I'm the first one to try it aren't I?"
"Yes. Well, not exactly... A few years ago there was a girl who had a similar problem as you."
"What do you mean? This girl had dreams about an alternate life?
"Um, well, sort of like that. She was a strong, confident girl and had a strong mind. She had a bit of a temper at times too, but she never gave up..."
"So, what happened to her?"
I noticed a small tear in his eye; it slowly grew and slid down his cheek. After a short pause, he spoke.
"What do you think happened to her?! Every day! Unable to do anything to help her! Every day watching her die a bit more inside! What started off as completely unnoticeable, got more visible every day. Here mane fell off from so many treatments and she became visibly weaker. She had times when she had intense pain that came and then went away. The pain was so intense she said that she would never wish that pain onto anyone, not even her worst enemy! That'll tell you. She went from looking perfectly healthy to being hardly more than skin and weak bones.
There was a long pause. The doctor tried to speak, but no words came out. He tried to let go of some of his pain before carrying forward with his story.
"On one of her unavoidable concluding days before her death... she knew, I think... she had a feeling that something was not right. She softly called out for a doctor. I was the closest one to where she was staying at the time. It was hard on us all and I did not want to see her in her condition. I honestly wanted another doctor to see her, but I wanted to show some respect to her in her final days before she went."
I heard her soft words and the pain hidden behind them. I slowly walked up to the door and placed my hoof on the cold doorknob. I hesitated to turn it, but I had a better plan. I would play along, hide the truth and show no sign that anything was wrong. I shakily turned the doorknob and open the door while slowly trying to straighten my posture and force myself to stop shaking so much. She was in one of the worst states she would ever be in. She was weak in life and trying to make the least amount of movement as possible to prevent much further pain.
"I..." I coughed to clear my throat. "I heard you calling for a doctor, is everything all right?"
"I don't know, doctor... is it?" she coughed, causing her whole body to twitch and grabbing her chest in pain. She started to cry softly.
"I..." I was at a loss for words. Nothing that I could say seemed like it would help.
"Just tell me this, and please... don't hide anything from me... I'm not going to make it, am I?"
"Don't think like that! You don't know for sure."
"But I know that you do, doctor... please... don't hide anything from me am I going to make it?"
I was holding back tears. My mind was flooded with things and ideas of what I could say. I could have told her the truth, and if I had told her the truth, she would have lived her last days with fear and misery, but if I had lied to her, she might have lived them with hope and happiness, but only false hope. I mentally kicked myself for the decision I had made, but her wish was to know the truth, so I decided to do that. Tears fell down my cheek as I told her.
"I'm so sorry! There was nothing we could do, we tried everything that we could! We just did not know how to tell you. As a hospital, we can give you anything, tell me something that you've always wanted to do in your life and then we will try our best to make it a reality."
"Thanks for telling me the truth, I really appreciate it... I kind of figured it would be that way. All I really want is a promise."
"Anything."
"Nopony deserves to go through the pain that I have to go though. All I want you to promise me is that you will never let another victim with this same thing... die. Focus your research on cancer, if you could. I know that my case is very strange... but... you know... Thank you, if it weren't for your care, I would probably not even be here any more. My dream friends did play a part though. I'll say good-bye to them for you."
"Thank you..."
She reached for me, and we met each other in a small hug. All the tears that I was previously trying to hold in broke through, she started to cry as well.
"I'm counting on you, doctor. Thank you for coming to see me, everyone around here has been trying to avoid seeing me, but you still came to me. You are different from the other doctors, a great inspiration and most of all, a good friend.
"She was such a nice, generous young girl... The next day I talked it over with the staff as to what we could do for her. We sent her and her family to a beach and a few days later, she died happily in the hooves of her family. One of the most peaceful deaths we could have given her."
I was at a loss for words, that was a heartbreaking story. That must have been torture to go through, this story could have also been one of the reasons as to why he was so desperate to get information out of me yesterday. I chose to stay silent for a while.
"At first, I was mad and avoid conversation whenever I could. I started blaming myself for not being able to do the task of saving a girl's life. We hardly had any patients back then so it was a big deal for me. The other doctors seemed to understand what I was feeling and gave me my space, I must have been unbearable to put up with. A few days later, I remembered the promise I had made her, and I realised that my grumpy attitude, avoiding people and treating people like garbage was not something that she wanted me to do. I studied for quite a bit on my free time and poured myself into my research, analysing all the information that I had gotten off of the patient. I then built a machine with complex mechanics to help me further analyze the cancer and stop. It would have theoretically worked on her, and it would work on you. Unfortunately, I hit a dead end in an area I had not even begun to consider at the time. Can you guess the part that I had forgotten about?"
"The dreams?"
"Bingo," he replied.
"So basically what you are trying to tell me is that without this information, the machine is useless?"
" 'Basically', the machine can't do anything while the cancer is fully active, which is why we have to slowly kill parts of it one-by-one. After that, there should be no problems with it removing what remains."
"So you've explained to me a bit about the treatments, but after that, what 'exactly' does this machine do?"
"It will absorb your dream... Shit!"
"What?"
"Sorry, it will take your already dead dream it, kill what parts of it may have survived, then remove what's left. I'm going to get this treatment prepared now. I shall be back within the hour."
"Um... okay?"
The doctor left the room in a hurry, leaving a confused and curious me behind. After so long, everything started to become boring... I should have asked the doctor for some sort of entertainment when he offered. I didn't dare to go to sleep after the story he had told me in fear that it would do more harm than good. For the longest time, nothing happened until the doctor came back smiling. He was happy... too happy. My eyes slowly drifted down to see what he was holding.
To my surprise, in his hooves was a very sharp and long-ass needle! I HATED needles back then, and I still do! The fear came when I was still in school. The idea of having a needle put into my hoof wasn't the most pleasant. I tried everything to avoid it; I let everyone pass me in the line, attempted to escape twice. They finally convinced me to take it by forcing me down and holding a funny picture to make me laugh. When the time came to put the needle in, she slowly inserted the needle close to my shoulder then pressed the button down. I was screaming at this point, then she proceeds to turn to the desk, leaving the damned needle in there, to pick up some papers before finally removing it. She took it out and slapped a fluff-ball with tape on the spot she had basically ripped. This situation with the doctor was not any more reassuring, so I spoke.
"The buck is that?!"
"Oh, it's a needle."
"I can see it's a needle! What are you going to do, fight off an army with that thing? Surely you're not thinking of shoving that thing inside of me?!"
You may now write all your naughty jokes on a piece of paper, fold it up and keep in your pocket forever, you glimmering genius. But in all honesty, that thing was huge (-_-) and with my fear of ordinary needles, and this one being 5 times as big, you can tell why I was afraid!
"Oh, come on, you're just exaggerating. It's not that bad..."
"Not that bad, what? Are you crazy?!"
"Look-"
"I am! That's why I'm freaking out!"
"Okay, then listen to me for a second," he told me. " The faster you cooperate, the faster this will be over."
"Like I haven't heard that one before! I wasn't born yesterday you know?"
"Just loosen up your muscles, it will hurt less." He walked over to me.
"What are you doing? I'm not going to let you do this!"
He grabbed my hoof and attempted to put in the needle, but I pulled it away at full force.
"You know the alternative..."
"Ugh, fine!"
He tried to put the needle back into my muscle again, but I pulled it back again, almost causing the doctor to drop it.
"Sorry... I just need to go to the wash-room."
"Fine, but I'm coming with you just in case you feel the need to escape again."
"What?! No! I am fully capable of going on my own!"
"I'm not going INTO the bathroom with you, I'm escorting you, also to lend you a shoulder in case you feel like you're going to collapse."
One minute later, there we were in the hallway. I was trying my best to stand up strait to not look weak. After I did my business, we started walking back. On our way back to the room, I heard a noise coming from the other end of the hallway in one of the rooms, but that wasn't really important. What was, was the fact that we were back at phase one. We stared at each other for a while without saying a word. we both knew that this would be complicated for the other. Unfortunately, we both know I was the better adversary.
Vs. Doctor (boss battle)
3! 2! 1! FIGHT!
"We're not going to do this again, are we?"
"I'm not getting that needle inside of me! Is there not a smaller one or something?" I asked in worry.
"No, this is the full, first treatment. It cannot get any smaller than it currently is."
"FIRST?! As in there's more! No! We're not doing this!"
"There's the easy way or the hard way, one of them hurts more."
"I dare you to try!" I yelled.
The doctor started to come with his special plan of attack. He charged by running to the side of the bed and grabbed my arm tightly. In a very anti-climactic turn of events, I realised that I was weak and had hardly any means to attack. However, I still had a few brilliant tricks up my sleeve. In no way could these fail.
"I need to use the bathroom again!! For a very long time!"
"My flank! Keep your flank still!"
"I'll bite you!"
I then tried to grab his arm, which he pulled away hurriedly. He then went to the drawer and grabbed some black thing. Curse me for being near-sighted because I had realised too late that it was tape! He took a long piece and attempted to to put it over my mouth. He then proceeded to hold down my left hoof with a strap.
"Like I said! This area is used to keep escaping patients restrained. I'm prepared for every possible thing that you could throw at me."
"hrugh hruh wuu hu wruhugh..."
"I'm sorry, what?" He removed the tape from my mouth.
"... so I still have my right arm!" I then tried to push him away to no avail.
He then grabbed the arm and slowly approached the needle to my skin.
"Nooo!!! Please stop! Wait!" I yelled in horror.
"Just try to relax your muscle. Like I said, there's the easy way and the hard way. It probably won't hurt as much if you soften up your muscle, it allows the needle to get in easier."
I gave up and closed my eyes.
"I don't even care any more... just get it over with."
"It's all ready done." He replied.
I opened my eyes to see the doctor put a fluff-ball in a smiley face band-aid before placing it on me.
"Oh... well this all went better than expected."
"It'll take about an hour before the treatment takes effect. Try not to fall asleep before then."
"I won't try to." I replied.
"Good, in the meantime is there anything I can get you?"
"Just some food and something to do."
"I can get you some paper and crayon?"
"Sure..."
Thirty minutes later he finally showed up again. He brought me a nice salad and some paper. After I had eaten, I chose to put my creative mind to the test for the last little bit I had to wait. I then came up with this MASTERPIECE.
"Hey doctor. You see this? this is art." I showed him the picture I had drew.
"Oh... that's... that's great! Clearly art of this level must be shown to the world." He then proceeded to hang it up on the wall. "I think it's been about an hour by now. You may go to sleep now if you want."
"All right, I think I will."
''I must remind you though that you will still have this dream of yours, but I want you to do two things. Firstly, I want you to closely examine Twilight and Lightning for me and tell me what they do. The other thing I want you to do is examine this light of yours as much as you can. If you can manage to do these two things, it will help the process immensely."
