That OC's Crazy Adventure That Never Made Sense

Chapter 2: The Dream

It’s dark. Too dark to be real.

Am I… dreaming?

Suddenly, on the horizon of the dream, a small point of light appeared and slowly grew bigger. That light turned out to be the moon, pale, bright, and huge. Larger than I’ve ever seen it before. Then, in front of the moon appeared a figure, holes in its legs and a twisted horn. Armies of similarly shaped figures stormed over the ground, surrounding me and ripping me to pieces. The figure let out a maniacal laugh, and as quickly as the dream began, it ended.

Of course, by end I mean, I woke up. Shaking.

Who was that pony? And why does it seem so ominously familiar?

“Denim?” said a pony to my right.

I screamed as if touched by a branding iron and jumped back involuntarily. It’s just the orange-coated nurse pony.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, uh… just… just give me a second,” I replied, rubbing the bridge of my muzzle with my hoof. I know I’ve seen that pony somewhere before, and whoever it is, I don’t have a good feeling about them at all.

“You were running in your sleep,” she added. “Bad dream?”

“Okay, this may sound awkward, but how long have you been here?” I asked.

“I have been here…” she consulted a clock on the wall. It was nearing dawn, sometime around 6 am. “For about 8 hours now. It’s the night shift, and I’m supposed to be the pony who’s making sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

Ah.

“Was that considered stupid?” I ventured.

“Waking up from a nightmare?” she chuckled sardonically. “Probably the smartest thing to do at a time like that. Might I ask what your dream was about?”

I went to answer, but hesitated. I remembered that Twilight and Rainbow Dash were supposedly the “good guys” of the story, and if they’re acting hostile to me, how can I trust my sarcastic caretaker?

“It was nothing,” I replied, trying to keep my voice neutral. I must’ve sounded unconvincing because the nurse asks me:

“You woke up sweating and shaking. Normally, if I have a bad dream, it’s so unrealistic that I can tell it’s bad and I wake up with a slightly faster heartbeat, nothing else. However, you were actually moaning and tossing and turning, throwing punches left and right,” she smiled that dry smile again. “So. What. Was. The dream. About?”

I couldn’t tell if she was bluffing about the whole tossing and turning thing, although my dream did play hell on my wings, which could be explained by that. Also, the hospital bedsheets had been thrown askew, draping over the sides of the bed, and wrapping around my legs. So, all evidence pointed to the fact that I was indeed tossing and turning about.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. I don’t want to relive the dream. I just want to get out of here. But, I have nothing else better to do than answer the nurse’s question, so I do.

“I had a dream about a giant alicorn pony, with holes in her legs and her horn. Suddenly, a whole bunch of miniature versions of her stormed over the hillside, overran me and... tore me to pieces.”

The nurse’s smile melted from her face.

“Tell me,” I demanded. “Who was that pony? I need to know!”

She remained silent and turned around. “My shift is over Mr. Denim,” and without another word she briskly trotted out the door.

I felt like jumping out of the hospital bed, screaming and hollering in rage, throttling that mysterious nurse-pony, demanding her for answers. But, considering that I’ve unintentionally made myself an enemy of Twilight’s and technically all of Equestria, I don’t want to make myself a direct enemy of my brusque caretaker.

Heaven knows, I could be an enemy of that mysterious pony I saw in my dream, and not even know about it. All I can do now is sleep…

The problem with sleeping was that… well… I couldn’t. I was at that point where I was so tired, I couldn’t sleep. Dream Purgatory as I called it, not quite Hell, but not Heaven either. Questions screamed through my head at a million miles an hour, accompanied by a vision of the pony, cackling evilly in the moonlight as I am ripped into a million pieces by her underlings. These thoughts all melted together, swirled, and then went to black as I bored myself into a light, dreamless sleep.
——————————————————————————————————————————

My sleep seemed to last only several seconds, but it’s suddenly day again. The clock read 12 pm, and I could hear several ponies trotting up and down the hallway outside my room. I fell on my back hard, and instantly regretted it as pain lanced up my wings and sent spears running through every nerve in my body. I nearly blacked out, but held on to a little pinprick of light at the end of a dark tunnel. My vision returned way too quickly, prompting nausea, and I nearly went into the dry heaves.

Ugh… Let’s not do that again.

The door creaked open, and a white pony with a trolley rolled in with a plate and bowl in tow. The aroma emanating from the food smells… bland. As if the chef wanted to hide the origin of the said food. I don’t blame him/her, as the soup looks like a decent broccoli and cheese soup, but the plate holds a mass of undeterminable glop.

“Uh…” is all I got out.

“Lunch for you Mr. Denim,” said the white pony. “And I’m here to check on your recovery progress.”

I prodded the mass of… mass with a fork. If it was white, I could understand it being mashed cauliflower, or mashed potatoes, but this, this is a grainy kind of green color. I was willing to bet broccoli again, but I’m not taking any chances. This smells a far cry from broccoli.

Imagine that it was a piece of bread, all toasted and dressed up in sauces and various herbs, and yet, it smells like nothing. The cilantro is odorless, the bleu cheese undetectable, the bread itself, bland.

But, what the heck. I was starving and could’ve eaten anything.

Gingerly, I spooned a sample into my mouth and my first instinct was to spit it out. But the doctor was still watching so I managed to swallow it, silencing my rumbling stomach a little.

The doctor pony smiled a little. “It’s horrible isn’t it?” he said.

I laugh dryly. “I was afraid what you might think about it.”

“Well, yes, I thought it was terrible how the chef had worked to make the food, I had taken time to deliver it, and after maybe three seconds of chewing, it had ended up as a mess on the floor to clean up. Most of the time. Then I tried it and nearly gagged myself.”

I laughed harder and with more heart this time. “It’s different hearing it from the doctor’s perspective,” I replied.

“Indeed,” he said.

There’s an awkward silence, which I broke.

“So, weren’t you here to do a check-up or something like that?” I asked, testing the soup, which was much better than the mashed … substance.

“Yes, I was. Hold on just a second,” he answered. He walked over to a monitor, and pulled up a diagram of my wings. They look as horrible as before. The breaks were still there, but the skin and muscle layers seem to be healing up much faster than I expected. The doctor sighs.

“Well, your epidermis and dermis layers, feathers, and coat have nearly all regenerated, so those should be good to go. However, your muscles are incredibly fragile and should not be used under any circumstances. Also, your bones are still healing, but very slowly. To sum it all up: You are under no condition to leave this room yet.”

I bit back a flood of curse words.

“However,” he added. He ducked outside the door briefly and pulled in a much larger cart, stacked with roughly a dozen books. My eye caught the title… “These books,” continued the doctor. “Are the,” he squinted at a piece of paper he was holding in his hoof. “Daring Do series, from Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. Huh, I didn’t know that the princess read the Daring Do series. Cool. Anyway, she told me to give this note to you.” He hoofed me another small piece of paper, which was written on in neat, purple ink. It read:

Dear Denim,

These, as you may full well know, are the Daring Do series, Rainbow Dash’s and my favorite adventure series, written by the esteemed A.K. Yearling. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Below this was written in a sloppier hoofwriting:

If you do anything to mess the books up, I will… do something violent! I’m watching you, buddy. Not a scratch.

— Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash

Crap. I thought. Another reason to get on Twilight’s bad side.

“Thanks Doctor…” I paused. “You know what? I’ve been here for several days, and I have no idea what anypony’s name is!” I held out a friendly hoof. “I’m Black Denim. What’s your name?”

The doctor paused, and then laughed. “I’m Silver Streak,” he said, returning the hoofshake. “Nice to meet you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to deliver more… glop to my bedridden customers.” He turned to leave, when I suddenly remembered…

“Oh, hey, Silver!” I called.

He turned. “Yeah?”

“Do you know anything about a pony who has holes in her legs and horn?”

Silver flinched slightly at my description. “…Yeah. That would be Queen Chrysalis, the ruler of the changelings. Why do you ask?”

I hesitated for a second. “I had a dream where I was attacked by her and her little underlings. It wasn’t a happy ending.”

Silver simply nodded in acknowledgement, and left.

I’ve heard somewhere that you can only dream about things you’ve actually seen or experienced, so does that mean that I was actually torn to bits by changelings? Or did I see this happen to somepony else? Well, the former can’t be true, because I’m still alive now… but it does explain my wing’s condition.

I’m sat there, contemplating these thoughts, and wondering as to how I know that, where I got the idea from. It may all lead back to understanding who I truly am… or was. I decided that these questions are better off left unanswered for now, as I turned towards the mound of books at my side and pick up the first one: Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue. I cracked the book open, and got a good smell of adventure and fresh book pages.

Daring Do was on an island, unable to fly…

——————————————————————————————————————————

Time is said to fly when you’re having fun, and I had proven that true, quite literally in fact. I was only partway through the 6th book of the series (Daring Do and the Topaz Amulet), when my sarcastic orange-coated nurse and Silver Streak walked in with the best news ever: I could leave the hospital. No more meals of mystery mush, no more waiting in sustained pain, and probably, no more dreams of changeling queens. I could also fly, as my wings had healed up at a miraculous rate.

I was free! FREE I TELL YOU!

But, a sudden thought hit me that dragged me down from Cloudsdale, all the way to Tartarus and back:

“Where do I stay? I mean, I’ve only been in Equestria for a couple of weeks, and I have no idea where to stay while I’m here.”

“Well,” said Silver Streak thoughtfully. “There is a vacant apartment nearby the Town Hall in Ponyville if you…”

“I can’t,” I replied abruptly. “I don’t have any money; I don’t even have a job!”

Orange-Coat laughed shortly. “There’s no need! You’re kind of a special case, so, just between you and us, a benefactor in Canterlot is paying for your stay until you find your job and can pay for it yourself.”

I’m shocked, pleasantly, by the sudden news. I could’ve kissed the benefactor myself, provided it was a mare… if it wasn’t I’d give them a hearty hoofshake, maybe a hug.

I jumped out of the hospital bed, and stripped off the boring-colored hospital gown.

“I’M FREEEEE!” I screamed, so loud, I swear somepony in Saddle Arabia could’ve heard it. Silver Streak and the orange-coated pony smiled for a brief second but their smiles faded slowly, to expressions of confusion.

“What?” I said. They gave each other that look that siblings give each other when they’re communicating something telepathically. “What? What’s so wrong with being free?” I grinned, trying to cheer them up.

Silver spoke first. “Well, the problem is,” he stopped hesitantly.

“Yes?” I prodded.

“You appear, by all appearances have outgrown your foalhood, however…” he paused again.

“You’re a blank-flank,” finished the orange-coated pony bluntly.

I knew what that meant, and my jaw hit the floor simultaneously with a lurching movement in my gut.

How… what? That doesn’t make any sense!

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll figure something out. Thanks for all your help,” I tried to sound optimistic, but it doesn’t change the horrible, rotten feeling in my stomach. How do I find my “greater calling” now? Without another word, I turned and left the sterile, stale air of the hospital, and took my first step outside in weeks.