Chapters CHAPTER 1:
Sitting in the same desk every day doing the same thing and seeing the same ponies gets on anypony's nerves, especially if those ponies constantly bully you because of your blank flank. Its not the bullying and teasing that gets to you, its the timing. Its the fact that the cutie mark seems to take its time to appear for the ponies who need it the most, like me. Every day before I leave home I always dread the thought of school and the ponies who go there. What I especially hate is that I have no friends that I can go to to help me out with the bullies. Because of this I just spend my days twiddling my mane and staring off into the distance, and I try to look as non-noticeable as possible.
I also don't have given name, which leaves the bullies with a lot of options for name calling. They have called me "dumbo" or "flankless", but the one that really gets on my nerves the most is "derpy". This nickname was given to me because of my clumsy nature. I can't even touch an object without having it fall apart in my hoofs. Just last week I was trying to write an answer down on the chalkboard when the chalk turned to dust in my hoof and floated down, causing a catastrophic mess on the carpet. As the teacher scolded me all of the students were shouting things like "ha looks like derpy's done it again" and "why can't you do anything right derpy? What the heck is wrong with you?". After that the teacher never let me write on the chalkboard again, so I guess that's a good thing.
Every day before going to school I would always be well prepared for the events that followed, whether it be name calling or taunts, I was ready. Or so I thought.
One day at school I was just sitting at my desk as usual, peering around the class and looking at all of the informational posters that were hanging around the room. I had heard the hustle and bustle of the other students that they usually had before class, but then something very strange happened. All of a sudden there was an aura of quietness that seemed to fill up the entire classroom. It was so quiet that you could hear a hay-needle drop to the floor. Utterly shocked and confused, I began to look around the class for the students, to see if they had left me. As I began to look behind me I heard a gargantuan scream followed by a hard blow to my head. That was the last thing I saw before I slipped into a land filled with darkness, and I stayed there for quite a while before I saw the light again.
CHAPTER 3:
A bright light hit my eyes as we entered the testing unit, causing them to hurt and my headache to grow stronger. I began to groan and shield my eyes with my hooves, but the orange doctor grabbed my hooves before I could, which had startled me. "I know its a bit bright in here, but we want to see if your eyes can get used to the light. That is your first test" She explained, and was followed by a few moans of pain by me. The wheelchair was placed in an area where the light shined the brightest, and the other doctors kept a close watch on me to make sure I wasn't closing my eyes. I looked at them in envy for a while because they got to wear sunglasses while my eyes were practically burning away. After a little while they took me to another room that was a lot dimmer, and I immediately felt a sense of relief. They brought a clipboard with them and began to ask me questions, mostly on what I could see and how I felt. After the questions they took me to another room with a bunch of sharp tools and a little capsule of liquid. I began to tremble.
The yellow doctor walked over to the vile of liquid and opened it's cap. A strong scent of lemons filled the room. "Now honey, these tests will hurt if your awake so we are going to give you this medicine to put you to sleep." The orange doctor explained to me. "YOUR GOING TO KILL ME??!!" I screamed in terror. "Nooooo no we are just going to put you to sleep for a little bit so you don't feel anything during the tests" she said, reassuring me that I would be fine. I still had my doubts, but I took the medicine anyway.
The testing actually didn't take too long. Well, to me at least. It only felt like 5 minutes had gone by when I woke up, but it wasn't the most pleasant sensation when I did. My eyes pained me even more then they did before, and they felt extremely itchy. I would have scratched them, but I was afraid that the doctors would grab my arms again to stop me. When my eyes were completely open the room wasn't as blurry as before. Actually, my vision was the same as it was before the... "incident". Even so the doctors still wore those worried looks upon their faces as they did before, mumbling among themselves something about "who should tell her first". They came to a decision after about 5 minutes of arguing, and the yellow doctor slowly walked towards me. The orange doctor stood in the corner of the room, as if she was sent there for punishment by a teacher. The yellow doctor slowly brought her head down to my wheelchair, cleared her throat, and began to speak. "Well, there really is no easy way to tell you this, but the impact to your head caused your eyes to permanently move in separate directions. We have never seen anything like this before, which is why we did all of this testing. We were able to restore your vision, but your balance will be greatly disturbed by this. We are truly sorry and we tried everything we could." The yellow doctor calmly spoke to me, as if she had known me my whole life. That didn't help though, because as she spoke my face began to turn white, and tears formed in my eyes.
CHAPTER 4:
After we left the testing unit, the doctors had told me that they still wanted me to stay another day in the hospital so I could fully recover from the hit. On the way to my room, ponies and other patients gave me weird looks as we passed by, and it really began to bother me. I thought I could escape bullying once I left school, but I guess I was wrong. As we went we passed a unit dedicated to helping the mentally ill. I didn't want to look because I had always felt so terrible for those ponies because it wasn't their fault they were like that. But even though other ponies know that they still think of them as a crazy nuisance and bully them for it. As we strolled by it I tried to look away, but I had seen something out of the corner of my eye. It was a light brown stallion with a spiky chocolate brown mane and bright blue eyes, and an hourglass laid upon his flank. He was sitting on one of the waiting benches with a blank look on his face. He noticed me and looked up, and his face immediately brightened up. He raised his hoof to wave at me, and I did the same. The wheelchair passed by as quickly as it came, and I began to miss him already. The reason was probably because he was the first person I had seen in many years to give me such a warm, welcoming look.
When we got to the room it had looked the same as before, except my bed had been remade. The doctors helped me into bed and without hesitation left the room. I had been so curious throughout the day why they had been so uneasy about my eyes. Maybe they really DID look as bad as they said they were. I had noticed a mirror next to my bedside-table, and stretched over to look at it. My first reaction was to scream, but I didn't want any attention drawn at me. It was hard not to though, because the eyes in the image I saw looked so misshapen and distorted. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Was this really permanent? Was it possible to cure them? What will the other kids think of me? No, what will the other kids DO to me? These questions danced around my head as I began to cry again, but this time it was louder. Way louder. I felt like I was crying all of the hardships and bullying I had faced away. It actually felt good to cry, especially since I had been holding it in all of these years. When I had finished I was startled to find that brown pony standing in the doorway, flashing the same smile at me as he did before.
"Hello, how are you feeling? Are you doing alright? I heard you crying in the hallway and I wanted to make sure you were okay" he said to me in a soft, gentle voice. "Yea, i'm alright. My eyes just hurt that's all" I replied. I didn't want him to worry about me.
"Would it be alright if I ask you what your name is?" he asked. I hesitated for a little bit, thinking of what to say. "M..my name is D..Derpy" I stuttered, not sure if I should have just said I didn't have one. I had expected him to laugh at me and make fun of the name, but all he said was "That is a cute name!" with a wide grin across his face. I could tell he wasn't faking it.
"I'm sure your hungry since you missed lunch Derpy" He said after an exchange of smiles between us. "I wasn't sure what you liked, so I grabbed a muffin from the cafeteria" "Muffin?" I asked in confusion. I had never heard of one of these things before. "Yea, I think they're swell! Trying it wont hurt" He said while holding out the muffin to me. Normally I would have passed on something I haven't eaten, but somehow I felt a special connection between us that I couldn't explain. It took all of my courage, but I took the muffin from his hoof and quickly took a bite.
CHAPTER 2:
I slowly opened my eyes and I found myself in a hospital bed with an enormous headache, and voices were dancing around the room I was in. My vision began to get cloudy and distorted, although I could still make out some basic things in the room. I assumed that it must have been part of the headache. After opening my eyes completely I found those voices were coming from 2 doctor ponies, one orange and one yellow, who seemed to be looking at some x-rays. They were shaking their heads worryingly, and kept glancing over at me until one of them noticed that I had awoken. Their faces were immediately struck with fear, but they began to calm down and they started to speak with me.
"Hello there Derpy! how was your sleep?". The orange one asked me. "Ummm, Derpy?" I asked with great confusion.
"Yes, that is your name isn't it? The students in your class told us that before we took y I MEAN BEFORE you came here with us!" She ended on a happy sort of note, giving me the best fake smile she could whip up. I overheard her whisper to the yellow doctor "We don't want to put any more stress on her then she has. Besides, she doesn't even know about her eyes yet." The yellow doctor nodded in approval and began to tilt her head towards mine. She stared intently into my eyes and handed a flashlight to the other orange doctor.
"Now Derpy" she said, " we are going to run a few tests with your eyes to make sure we can help them recover along with your head." "R..recover?" I asked in a drowsy tone. "Yes, ummmm, I will describe it in more detail to you later. Off to the testing unit!" she had said, once again trying to end on a happy note, when in reality fear was written all across her face.
She helped me get out of my bed (and helped me regain my balance a few times) before I was put into a wheelchair and was carted off to the testing unit. On the way there I asked what was wrong with my eyes. She responded with a nervous grin and said "Oh nothing really, you just need some testing to help stop the blurring."
"Is it from the headache?" I asked her, and she responded with a feint "...no" "Well, can you tell me how I got here in the first place?" I asked with a little edge in my tone. I needed to know what was going on and fast. "Well, you see, one of your classmates got frightened by you for whatever reason, and had a knee-jerk reaction to hit you with whatever object was nearby. This is of course what got you this headache, and we assume is what made your vision blurry too." The doctor had said to me and was a little startled by my sudden change of tone.
I knew that this story wasn't entirely true, but who was I to argue? I was going to get myself all healed soon enough, and maybe things would turn back to normal. Maybe.
