Doctor Derpy
The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't move my forelegs. I could feel a tightness just above both hooves and a dull ache that seemed to be all over. My eyes shot open to behold an unfamiliar ceiling. Then I heard the ruffling of pages near my head. Instinctively I turned to look, trying to wriggle my hooves loose from either side of my head. To my left was the googly-eyed mailmare, Derpy, flipping quickly through a book as she sat at an oddly placed table against my bedside.
The house, which I assumed was hers, was a mess from what I could see of it. There were stacks of old newspapers higher than my vantage point. I saw a bookshelf with not a single upright book upon it. The wallpaper was peeling and the light fixtures had not only three-dimensional dust but also entire ecosystems thriving on them. "Derpy?" I groaned.
She looked up at me with a start. "Oh, no. You're awake,” she quivered. “I was hoping I could do this... before you were awake."
I knitted my brow in concern. "Wh- what is going on?" I stammered.
Her eyes were looking everywhere but at me. I couldn't tell if it was out of panic or if it was just the nature of her broken eyes. "Well," she began nervously. "I'm really really sorry. You had an accident but it- it's okay because I'm going to help you."
"Accident?" I wondered aloud. "Why am I tied to your-" My words were chased away as shooting pain surged through my left hind leg as I tried to shift. I screamed.
Derpy covered her ears. "Don't- don't do that," she squeaked in alarm.
I tilted my head up, mouth agape, to look down the length of my body and saw a white bone sticking out of a bloody eruption in my leg. I could feel the blood drain from my face. "Shit," I whimpered. "Oh, fuck me."
"Don't... look at it either," advised Derpy, pushing my head back down on the mattress with one hoof.
I began to gasp for air in panic, mind racing for an explanation. I had the vaguest recollection of previously standing on a balcony and then… something.
"Derpy," I cried, turning my head back to her. "Why did you bring me here and tie me up? I need to go to the hospital!"
A look of horror came over her face and she shook her head. "No, no, no! You can't go to the hospital! If you go to the hospital, I have to file another accident report. If I file another accident report, I'll get fired again."
Well, that answered most of my questions. “What are you talking about?” I retorted angrily. “I have to go to the hospital! I can see my leg bone! Have you gone mad?”
“No, I can fix it,” she assured me. “I’m reading these books.” She held up the book that was already open so that I could see the cover. It was upside down but I could see that it read, ‘My First Body Book.’ It was clearly a picture book for young foals, not a paramedical crash course or whatever it was she was thinking.
“Is this- is this a joke?" I choked out. "It would be a horrible joke but please tell me this is a joke.”
Derpy’s ears drooped in embarrassment and I came to the horrific realization that she was actually deadly serious. I took a deep breath and began in the most level voice that I could manage. “Untie me and take me to the hospital this instant.”
Derpy reaffirmed her position, shaking her head. “I already told you, I can’t.”
“Sure you can,” I argued gently, still trying to work out of my bonds.
“I’ll never get hired by anypony again,” she moaned.
“No pony has to know. I promise I won’t tell. You don’t have to file an accident report. I’ll just tell the hospital that I was clumsy and fell.”
“But it’s company policy. If you go to the hospital, I have to file a report.”
“No, you don’t,” I shook my head frustratedly.
She leaned in so that her face was hovering over mine, staring down with what I interpreted as a dire expression. "Yes... I do."
“Ugh, I grunted. Are you seriously telling me that you preforming surgery on me is a better option than just pretending this never happened?”
“Yes.” She pulled away and went back to her book.
Everypony knew that Derpy was a little off but right now she sounded like a total nutter. Illogical as her thoughts were, it didn’t matter. She was in charge here I was completely at her mercy.
This isn't happening. This isn't happening, I desperately tried to convince myself. This is a bad dream. Vinyl Scratch was probably hotboxing the living room again and I'm just passed out on the sofa. I moved my bad leg gingerly and felt another lightning bolt shoot through me. I groaned through clenched teeth. Nope. That feels pretty real.
"We need to put your bone back in," began Derpy, holding an illustration in front of my face. "According to the book, bones are usually inside your body."
"Oh, learned that from the book, did you?" I chuckled humorlessly.
She moved on down the bedside, turning her attention to my compound fracture.
"Oh no. Please don't," I begged. "Just let me go." I began frantically yanking my forelegs away from the headboard posts, trying not to agitate my wound with my movements.
Derpy frowned over the injury in careful deliberation. "Okay, we just need to-" She looked away squeamishly and without warning pushed her hoof straight down upon the break, shoving the bone back in with a detectable grinding sensation. The resulting pain was mind blowing. My deafening scream caused Derpy to flinch like a frightened filly and she covered her ears.
With her hoof gone, the wave began to subside. My mental faculties returned, heralded by a string of obscenities. “CELESTIA ON A BIKE! YOUR MOTHER’S A WHORE!” Fuck, Derpy! Why?”
We both looked at the injury which was in no better condition than before, the bone still poking out defiantly, a fresh bit of blood oozing out. All that pain. All that stupid, pointless pain.
"That didn't work," she moaned sadly, scratching her head. "I'm sorry."
Before I could make another snide remark on her methods, Derpy drove her hoof into the break with more force than before. My vision faded to black as my entire world condensed into a singularity of unfathomable suffering. That one second assault on my leg was an eternity in fire. The rabid howls which escaped my mouth were not my own. When I returned from the extremities of corporeal perception, I could feel warm blood pouring over the sides of my leg.
Terrified of the results, I looked down again, panting, drained, weeping. Derpy had her hooves on the sides of her head in a panic.
"It's not working. I can't put it back in." She looked around the room frantically. "Don't- don't worry, I can still fix this." She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.
The wound looked just the same but with more blood. I let my head flop back on the mattress and tried to catch my breath, weakly struggling with my restraints. As incompetent as she was at most things, I had to admit that I was utterly confounded by these straps.
Derpy returned from somewhere and I heard a loud thunk on the wooden table. I rolled my head to the side to see a nasty old power tool, a reciprocating saw sitting casually beside me. My eyes widened in horror. "Uh, D- D- Derpy, what is this for?" I stammered.
She sat in the chair, flipping carefully through the tool's instruction manual, struggling to get her eyes to focus on the words, shaking her head to force her orbs to rattle back into alignment if only for a few moments.
"I can't get your bones back together," she began. "So I'm just going to cut off the bad part of your leg."
My blood ran cold.
"Don't worry," she continued. "I know that cutting off legs is something they do."
Another wave of adrenaline fueled desperation broke over me but what good was it? How could I fight? How could I flee? “You know what?” I proposed with put-on and not at all convincing calmness, “I don’t need to go to the hospital after all. I can just fix my leg myself. Can you please just release me and I’ll go home and… fix it by myself?”
One of her eyes looked up at me, the other apparently still poring over the instructions as if somehow they'd bestow upon her the proper way to amputate a limb with a power tool. “I don’t believe you.”
She was right to doubt me. Of course I’d go to the hospital. Her logic on everything else was still rubbish though.
"This plan doesn't make any sense!” I argued. “Everypony will ask what happened to my leg. They'll know there was an accident!"
"But it's fine as long as you don't go to the hospital,” she countered.
My eyes narrowed. "Derpy, if you cut off my leg, so help me, I will make certain that you not only get canned but that you never find work in Ponyville again!"
Her mouth dropped open in shock. "Why would you do that?" she cried. "You know how hard it is for me to hold down a job. I'm trying to help you."
"Help me my hoof!” I growled. “If you wanted to help me, you'd allow me to seek professional medical care at a hospital."
Derpy frowned angrily. "You know, no pony saw what happened. No pony knows you're here."
I bit my lip at the shocking veiled threat against me. What could I say to convince her that this was a horrible idea for both of us? I could tell her she'd go to prison for this which was absolutely true but she already seemed to be on the verge of deciding I was too much trouble to 'save.'
"HELP!" I screamed. "HELP! SOMEPONY HELP ME!" I didn't know where Derpy's house was located but surely somepony had to be within earshot of me. But I'd already screamed as loud as physically possible and I hadn't even heard so much as a knock at the door. Although I knew she wasn't around, I saw a very clear mental picture of Vinyl listening to loud music on her headphones, never able to hear when I called her in our flat.
“It'll be okay, Octavia," Derpy assured me, a glazed look in her eyes. "You’ll still have three complete legs and you’ll still be able to play the saxophone.”
“Sax- saxophone?” I sputtered in disbelief. “I play the cello. They’re not even in the same… Saxophone?” I glared at the ceiling. I must have been going mad as well because this seemingly irrelevant comment somehow irked me enough to occupy my brain over serious bodily harm and the threat of losing a limb. I’d never even touched a bloody saxophone. I couldn't even recall playing in an ensemble which included a saxophone. It felt like my passion and entire life’s work had been called into question. It was probably just another Derpy gaffe but what if the truth was that no pony actually ever noticed what I do… Saxophone?
I looked back at the saw and felt terror and hopelessness but also anger. “This is your fault!” I charged. “Why do I have to suffer for your screwup? You should have your leg chopped off!”
Derpy slammed her hooves on the table, nearly knocking the tool to the floor. "Don't say that!" She screamed. "I'm not a screwup! It was an ACCIDENT! I have a job and a house! I can go to the store by myself! I didn't spill the flour, daddy! It was the cat! IT WAS THE CAT! She began ripping at her mane in a frenzy, shrieking all the while.
What in the Everliving Fuck I thought, staring in terror as she leapt from her chair and began bashing her own face into the wall. I winced at every impact. The drywall cracked and then crumbled away, revealing the studs underneath. Derpy collapsed on the floor, exhausted, hyperventilating. She gasped and muttered broken sentences that sounded like fragments of old conversations where she played both parts.
"Y… you're... not going... to the… fair, Ugly... But… I can… my… my own… huh... ticket…….. No."
I had lost my presence of mind and just laid there petrified, never having witnessed such an outburst, not from Derpy, not from anyone.
Minutes passed as I vainly worked on my restraints. Suddenly, Derpy rose silently to her hooves, her face smeared in blood from cuts, maybe even a broken nose. "I'm really sorry," she said in her usual meek and apologetic tone. "I feel… feel better now."
"Derpy, you need help," I whimpered.
"No, you need help," she replied, trying to eye my injury with her swiveling swollen orbs. She gave a long pause, wobbling a bit as she stared into space, trying to remember where we were in the midst of this ludicrous project.
"Okay," she muttered to herself before sauntering off.
I flexed my forelegs tightly, trying to stretch out the straps and loosen them but had to stop abruptly as the other ligatures pulled on my hurt leg.
Derpy returned and curiously placed a pair of safety glasses over my eyes with her mouth. "The instructions say to wear safety glasses," she explained.
"Please stop," I cried. "You don't know what you're doing!"
"I read the instructions," she replied. "They didn't say but this might hurt." She started up the saw with a deafening drone and promptly dropped it on the floor as it jittered out of her grasp.
"Oops," I heard her say as the motor cut out. "Stupid- stupid Derpy again," she mumbled to herself. "Be more careful."
I could feel my heart beating in my throat as I mounted one last concerted effort to free myself.
The saw revved again as Derpy hovered the device just over the break in my leg. She shook her head again, trying to get her eyes to behave. The blade was so loud that I could no longer plead for her to stop and I could scarcely hear the sound of my own scream.