My Brompton Cocktail Blend
Please Don't Question Why
I opened my eyes to find myself in a park filled with ponies, and I looked around and stopped suddenly when I noticed a distinct lack of something. I quickly patted myself down with my hooves, could it be? Yes, it could!
It was gone! The pain was finally gone, after all of this time! I nearly jumped for joy when I felt something warm and soft on my body, and I turned over to see none other than Derpy Hooves resting her head on me and sleeping soundly. I scratched the back of my head in confusion, what was she doing here with me? I was about to shake her awake when I felt a sudden cold spike, and the world became dark around me.
I heard the unmistakable sound of hoofsteps and turned to see a sight that chilled me to the bone. It was a pony, and they were covered in a black robe, so I couldn't make out their face. Whoever it was, they kept coming closer towards me and Derpy. I turned to shake her awake and saw that she was no longer there. Before I could question what was happening, the cloaked pony leant down next to me and whispered three words in my ear.
"Out of time." I quickly closed my eyes and opened them again, only to find myself in more familiar surroundings. I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an I.V., with its liquid slowly dripping and draining into my body, and the unmistakable if not somewhat annoying constant beeping of the EKG, so at least I knew that I was still alive, for the time being.
Then the pain returned, more intense then it had been for the past few weeks, and I began coughing uncontrollably. When I finished my coughing fit, I felt some warm, thick liquid on my lips dripping down slowly, and I tasted copper.
"This is just great," I said to myself. Thinking back on it made it seem like it all happened so fast. Meeting Derpy and her filly, getting a job in the town, and then the sickness came. It was like most diseases, quick to ravage my body and slow to leave. It got to a point where I was forced to admit myself to the hospital, only to discover that my disease was an extremely rare one, and not something that they had seen for a very long time.
If things weren't bad enough, it also turned out that the disease had no cure and all that they could do was prolong my suffering, oh I'm sorry, "my life" as they put it. I wasn't blind to the fact that one of the major reasons they were doing this was because of my expensive medical bills that would have to be paid. My poor family would probably still be paying them off long after I was dead, buried, and rotted.
Not to mention that they were most likely using me and my body as their own private testing grounds. They must think that they'll be the ponies that cure this rare disease, and all it will cost them is a single patient. Although thinking about it, even I couldn't argue with those numbers, and I hate math.
I was about to nod off back to sleep when I heard the door to my room open, and a familiar unicorn filly walked into the room with a basket of muffins. I smiled her, knowing that if she was here her mother couldn't have been too far behind. And sure enough, a few moments later a familiar grey pegasus walked into the room, her normally cheery demeanor replaced with one of grief. I smiled at the two.
"Hey guys, how's it been?" I asked, doing my best to put on a face that would suggest that I was feeling better, to no avail. The looks on their faces told me that I looked just as bad as I felt, which wasn't a good sign. Derpy took the muffin basket from Dinky and placed it on the small shelf next to my bed.
"I made these for you this morning. They're blueberry, I know how much you love them." I smiled at her, and I noticed that small tears were beginning to build up in her eyes. I reached over to her as far as I could without putting my body in too much pain and tried to comfort her. When she realized that she was out of my reach, she moved closer and I pulled her into a hug.
I wanted her to believe that I was feeling better, hell I wanted to believe that I was feeling better, but I knew better. I'd lost my final fight to a disease I had never heard of, and I was living on borrowed time at this point. I wanted to say something when I suddenly heard the door open yet again, and we all turned to see that it was the doctor, with a nurse close behind.
He was levitating a clipboard in front of him, and when he lowered it and saw Derpy and Dinky in the room with me he smiled.
"Well hello there you two, I wasn't expecting to see you here today." He then focused his attention on me, "And how are you feeling today?" I rolled my eyes at the question.
"Doc, I'm dying. We both know it, so just tell me how much longer I've got left to suffer through this." His smile immediately faded, and the whole room seemed to get colder by at least five degrees. He cleared his throat before continuing.
"Um, yes of course. Well, it seems that this is much worse than we originally thought. The disease is slowly shutting your organs down one by one. With your lungs being followed by your heart. All in all, it will be excruciatingly painful when you-" He stopped himself when he saw the looks on both Derpy and Dinky's faces. If I wasn't afraid that it would bring me a whole new world of pain, I would have face-hoofed, instead I settled for rolling my eyes.
"But, there is something that we can give you to help with the pain." My ears perked up at this.
"Really, well what is it?" The doctor sighed.
"Well, it's a little cocktail that I invented a while back that we only give to our most extreme cases. It's only meant for ponies who are going to die because, well, because after twenty minutes in your system it stops your heart." Everypony in the room that wasn't the doc or the nurse gasped in unison, and then I fell into a whole new coughing fit, and when I finished, I tasted copper once again. I weighed my options, and I sighed.
"So what's so great about this cocktail of yours anyway? And what's it even called?" The doctor scratched behind his head for a moment before answering.
"Well, it's a mixture of powerful pain medication and alcohol. It's purpose is to induce a state of euphoria before it stops your heart. As for the name, I named it after myself." I rolled my eyes, typical I get a doctor with a complex.
"So, you're going to give me-"
"Yes," he interrupted, "A Brompton Cocktail." I sighed and turned over to see Derpy staring at me in disbelief.
"You're not actually considering this are you?" I wanted to say something, but when I saw that Dinky was still in the room, I had the nurse escort her out of the room. After all, she was just a filly, she didn't need to hear this. Once she was gone I turned over to her mother, my best friend.
"What more do you want me to do? I'm already dying, I can barely feel my fucking face at this point, and I've been fighting this thing since day one. I've tried to put on a strong act, tried to convince you that I was feeling better and that there was a chance I could beat this, but it was all I lie, and I'm tired, so tired. All I want is something to help me move along, and that's what he's offering me." I could see that she was on the verge of tears.
"I wish that there was another option, I really do, but there isn't. If I do this, I'll feel alive again, if only for a few minutes, but I'll be me again, for the first time in a long time. Please, don't make this any more difficult for me, do you think that I want to leave my friends and family behind?" She shook her head, and began to cry.
"I don't want to lose you, please don't make me lose you!" My expression softened and I began to stroke her mane.
"Fine Derpy, we'll just have to find another way. Why don't you go get Dinky and we can have some of these muffins you made?" Her demeanor seemed to change a bit and she wiped her tears away and nodded. Once she left the room I turned over to Brompton.
"I'm assuming that there's some paperwork I'm going to have to sign?" He nodded, and I sighed.
"Of course, you doctors love your damned signatures."
Once I had signed the appropriate papers and the doc left to bring me his concoction, Derpy had found Dinky and returned to the room. We had already started eating some of the muffins she had made when the doctor returned to the room with the needle carrying what could only be what I had been waiting for. Neither Derpy nor Dinky noticed as he placed the needle into my I.V. and emptied its contents inside of the bag.
Over the course of the next several minutes that pain began to slowly subside, and I felt better than I had in weeks, possibly even months. If I weren't afraid that my body would fail me as soon as I tried, I would have hopped from my bed and started dancing with Derpy. The following minutes were some of the best of my life. I finally felt at peace, I felt alive again.
We started telling jokes, we laughed, I laughed, without being interrupted by coughing fits or sharp pains in my chest. But I couldn't stop myself from feeling guilty. Neither Derpy nor Dinky had any idea that I had done what I promised I wouldn't. I wanted to say something, but I felt myself getting weaker, my vision began to blur, and from what I could hear from the EKG, my heartbeat was beginning to slow.
Derpy immediately knew that something was wrong and called for the doctor, at least I think that's what she did, I was beginning to have trouble hearing. The doctor appeared in the doorway and she began to tell him that something was wrong with me, at least I think she did. The doc just stood there and said something. From reading his lips, I think he said "I'm so sorry", but I could be wrong.
I guess he went on to explain what he had done, but by then my vision had already began to fade, and the last thing I saw before it faded to black was Derpy standing next to me, crying and yelling at me I assume. I wanted to say so many things to her before I let go, but there was only one thing left to say.
"I'm sorry Derpy."
The End
Author's Note
Well, this is the first time I've ever tried to write something like this. How did I do? Terrible I'm sure.