The steady hum of the heart rate monitor filled the room. Each beep showed that she was still alive, but I knew she was dead. It has been several months since the accident and she has not shown any signs of improvement. I look back on that day with scorn, knowing what happened and how it could have been prevented. I have gone through hundreds of thousands of ways that I could have stopped this from happening in my head, but every thought is a dagger into my already broken heart.
My mom is at home with my dad. They used to visit the hospital everyday, but the strain has taken its toll on my mother. She barely eats, she barely sleeps, she just sits there with her emotionless eyes staring into the void that she was dragged into. Before I started staying at the hospital, I swear that I could see the memories she had with her daughter being replayed like a video on a loop.
I remember when I first got the message. Come to the hospital, your sister is going into surgery. I dropped all that I was doing and rushed to the hospital. I arrived just in time to see her get taken into the operating room. We waited outside. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours, but all the while it felt like an eternity to me. After five hours and twenty-four minutes, the doors opened and she was wheeled out. She was wrapped up in several different bandages, but the thing I noticed first was that she was still breathing.
Seeing her still alive was amazing, and I could not wait to talk to her again. My family and I waited in her room for the rest of that day, and for the night as well. The next day we waited some more. We waited, and waited, and waited. I really hate that word, waiting. When that one word carries the idea of your dead sister, it becomes very unpleasant. After a month, the doctor said that she was still unresponsive to anything they did. After two months, my mother stopped showing up, and after three, the doctor gave me the choice of pulling the plug, as they saw no way of her coming out of this.
“We can either keep her on life support, or pull the plug today. It’s your choice.”
I objected. I objected every single day when they gave me the option. I would give anything in the entire world to hear her soft voice again.
“Rarity, lets go hiking!”
“Rarity, can Scootaloo and Applebloom sleep over tonight?”
“I love you, Rarity. You're the best sister ever!”
Every beep of that machine showed those words drifting farther and farther away from reality. These were the words that I was afraid I would never be able to hear again. Every day, those fears come one step closer to being a reality. One thing that kept me going was my friends. They visit me every day, which is something that I am forever grateful for. One at a time, they spend some of their with me.
First who comes in is Rainbow Dash. She tries to hide her emotions around me, but I can tell that she is just as upset. When the news spread, Scootaloo went to Rainbow Dash. They had been together everyday since the accident. When Rainbow would visit me, she tells me all about the good memories that Scootaloo had with Sweetie Belle. All of their adventures to find their calling, all of the times they got in trouble, all of the fun times they had together. Rainbow and I laughed about these days, remembering the aftermath they always had to clean up. Those memories seemed like it was only a few days ago. Rainbow would always leave these little meetups with this sentence.
“She will wake up, Rarity. She is just as tough as you are.”
Next up came Pinkie Pie. Every day she would bring me a single cupcake. She did not bring me just any cupcake though, she brought me the most beautiful cupcake I had ever seen. She did this with every cupcake she brought in, each being completely unique from the last, with a brand new flavor to go along with it. Pinkie told me how she always admired me for doing that with my dresses, making each one different from the last. After I ate it, she tried her best to cheer me up. She talked to me, she told me jokes, and even though I would never get that happy, I always appreciated what she did for me. She left me with these words every day.
“Once she wakes up, we’ll go and play everyday, making sure to enjoy every moment of it.”
Once Pinkie left, Twilight would come in. She suggested one day that she read a book to me, to help me ease my mind. I said sure, and she started reading. I enjoyed this part of my day much more than I thought it would. I really would take my mind off of things and everything that was going on. A few months before the accident, Sweetie Belle started taking magic lessons from twilight to further improve her magic abilities, so everyday after the readings she would tell me how great Sweetie Belle was. She would tell me how she mastered spells like they were nothing and how great of a student she was. This made me so proud of my little sister. Before Twilight left, she would tell me this.
“Once she fully recovers, I would like you to come to one of our lessons. She was always talking about you coming to one.”
When Twilight was gone, Applejack slowly made her way into the room. This accident also affected her considering Sweetie Belle was almost like a second sister to her. She would walk in and give me a shiny apple. She would also leave one for Sweetie Belle, just in case she would wake up that day. Applejacks visit was a little like Rainbow Dash's, except she was more open about her emotions. She would tell me about all the good times that they had together. We would talk about all of the sister days that had done together and all of the happy times they had. When Applejack left, she would always tell me this.
“She'll wake up, sugar cube. I can promise you that.” That coming from the element of honesty was very uplifting.
The final visit, which happened to be the one I enjoyed the most, was Fluttershy's. After she came in nice and silent like she usually does, she would sit next to me and hug me and we would both cry and cry until neither of us had any more tears. Words are rarely shared with our visits, but I am fine with that. Sometimes, words don't need to be shared between two friends to understand each other. Fluttershy would always leave me by hugging me and saying this very softly.
“Everything is going to be okay.”
These visits from my friends are what’s helping me through this the most. If it was not for them, I could have very well given up hope a long time ago. It has been about five months since the accident, and things are looking less and less hopeful everyday. I was waiting in my usual spot like I normally did everyday when the doctor walked in, ready to ask his usual question. When he opened his mouth, instead of asking the question, he said something different.
“While you were asleep yesterday, we ran some tests. I have no easy way to say this. Her brain was permanently damaged in the accident. I'm afraid that she won't wake up. Now, it's still up to you if you want her on the machine, but we have some other patients that could really benefit from the use of this room.”
Him saying those words, the words that I have been afraid to hear ever since the accident, caused me more pain than any physical harm could. He asked again if I wanted to keep her on the machine, but instead of my usual yes, or nod, I finally shook my head, knowing what I had to do. He walked over to the machine, and he pulled the cord. The hum stopped. The beeps stopped. The room fell silent.
I opened up the door to my house. I just came back from her funeral. Everypony was there. All of my friends, my neighbors, even the princess took time out of her busy day to give her condolences. The house was still and silent. I walked upstairs and laid down on my bed and closed my eyes. I slept for a good six hours before I awoke again, but when I did, something caught my eye. It was a note on my bedside table with the label saying “To Rarity.” I opened the note and started reading.
“Dear Rarity. It's your sister, Sweetie Belle. When I was sleeping in the hospital, Luna came to visit me in my dreams. I have to admit, I was super scared of what was going on for the first few days, but she made it a lot easier to deal with. Either way, she is the reason I was able to get this note to you. I just want to tell you how much I appreciated you staying there with me when I was scared. You were there every single day that I was in the hospital. What I will say will hopefully make you feel a bit better.
After the first month, I got used to being in this other world. There were a lot of other ponies here with me, and all of them were super nice. Some were old, some were young, and some were even blank flanks, like me! That leads me to another thing. I finally got my cutie mark here! It turns out that my special talent was singing, but I guess I should have figured that out, huh? Princess Luna came and played will us a lot. It was super nice of her to do. She is a lot of fun to hang out with. I have made plenty of new friends here, and I was even able to find grandma and grandpa, the ones in the pictures at your house! I have been living with them, and they are also super nice.”
The letter went on and the more I read the more I cried. I cried so much that the bottom of the paper started to get a little soggy and it almost made the last line almost illegible, but I was able to make out what it said.
“With great love, your biggest fan and loveable sister, Sweetie Belle.”
