Author's Note

If you are wondering why this has so many thumbs up it is because this story was originally posted in 2012 and I just resubmitted it and began rewriting it due to me being unhappy with the quality and how it was rushed in my opinion. TLDR, this is hopefully a better version but now with season 7 content, and maybe an appearance from prince green antler aka Thorax

Chapter 1

You awake in a hospital, how you got there is a mystery, but the more you wonder how you got here you start to wonder where exactly here is. You look around and everything seemed to be a bit on the small side, maybe you're in a children's ward? No, you highly doubt they would scale down the equipment to match the bed and furniture. You looked down and found your chest punctured with various tubes going in and out with sanguined gauze help in place with soaked in blood. You looked around your immediate vicinity and saw the tubes leading to various machines, and an IV drip a foot and a half above your head with some kind of numbing agent mixed in, you could feel the pain but it wasn't overbearing. You tried to move your legs but the soles of your feet were inches off the floor, did they have no bigger beds? Focus, you try to remember what happened, all you remember was that you were home alone, paranoid, as usual, dad went for groceries...Then it just all goes black. The more you thought the more strenuous your headache got and the tighter the bandages on your head felt. your head was pounding. For now, you should just be glad whatever happened didn't kill you...

You just stared at the ceiling, you began counting the specs on the ceiling tiles around the hanging incandescent light fixtures, they were a pale almost neutral green, kind of like the ones at the hospital you stayed at for a while. You shake those thoughts out of your head, you needn't go back there, you're here now, everything is fine, everything is fine, no one is out to get you, you're fine. Just as you finished your new mantra you heard someone outside the door and then the doorknob started to turn, wait, even the door was small if a bit wide. You tried to turn onto your left side to look away from the door but the wound on your stomach caused you to severe pain, you just decided to close your eyes and pretend to sleep. You never liked doctors.

"Huh, thought it'd be awake by now... Guess we can tell the night shift to just monitor its vitals and call us if anything goes into the red." The doctor said as he walked around, a separate set of footsteps followed him not two feet back.

I'm a person, not a thing, also why did he bring a nurse in with him? She must have literally been walking in his footsteps because the clop of their shoes was nearly on top of eachother

The door clicked shut with the doctor and his associate disappeared behind the distorted glass, you probably think they use that so people can't peek in on patients as they walk by, but they can see people walk by and get a view of the outside, after all, this room was without a window. You just look around, the chairs are low to the ground and are rather... what was the word? Ah, arciform, it was kind of rounded and arched in the back, maybe this was a special room for those with back problems? Maybe dwarves? You had no idea, but with nothing else to do you just lay there and theorize their choice of furnishings. Everything seemed a bit child-sized but wide with ample back support. From what you knew kids didn't usually lean back, rather they lean forward, why the focus on cushy chair backs? Too much funding? It was all a similar pale neutral green as to match the door, the walls, the shade on the light fixtures that hung from the ceiling and pretty much everything that could come in a different color didn't

Time languidly passed until the clock on the wall read midnight, you hadn't heard any footsteps outside your door in over an hour, they always came in pairs, must be a university hospital where students shadow their seniors and learn from real-world experience. Something just didn't sit right with you as a heavy panic began to sit in.

You need to get out of here, something isn't right if this was a legitimate emergency where were your parents? Nothing added up, you had to get out, now...

You start to sit up, the painkillers had fully taken effect as the pain you felt earlier was absent. The act of sitting up tugged on the tubes and one came unplugged and a low hiss could be heard as air could be heard leaving a tank behind your bed you couldn't see from your original position. you do a countdown from three and lean forward with all your energy and somehow get to your feet, you are as unsteady as a newborn giraffe on your feet and your bandages are dripping with blood but you just had to get out, nothing added up. You began hobbling towards the door but as your reached it a pair of footsteps went by. You held your breath as they went echoed down the hall and faded away. About a minute after the footsteps went away another patrol came around, it followed this pattern for ten minutes, so after the next pass, you left as soon as you heard the gait of the pair vanished. You quickly opened and carefully closed the door and made a break for the direction the personnel went because you saw down the hall that it curved right, meaning this was a loop, you stayed a hundred feet behind them, due to the medicine your vision was blurry but you could at least make out the bright white coat of the doctor but you still heard two pairs of footsteps.

Focus, they must be in a line, yeah, the intern must be in front or something You rationalize.

Hunched over "running" down the hall as fast as your body could manage you find the elevators, again for some reason they are rather short, it doesn't matter, you weren't going to use them anyways, you looked around for the stairs knowing the next round would be soon. You found them in the corner of the building a bit further down the hall just before the footsteps grew closer, you slipped into the stairwell before they could notice you. As you stood at 5 10 your head was too close to the ceiling for comfort.

Who made this building, dwarves?

You shook your head and tried to focus, you were pretty ADD at times, you crept down the stairs floor by floor until you reached the second, your room was on the fourth, but just before you hit ground level an alarm rang. Had you been spotted? If so, why did they just now ring the alarm? You looked down and in the dark, you saw a what could be considered a Hansel and Gretel trail of blood droplets in your wake from your bandages dripping consistently heavily over during your escape. It didn't matter, you were near the bottom floor and then would make a break for it, you heard frantic movement beyond the door to the hallway on the ground floor and waited till you heard the clear "ding" of the elevator going up then you ran for it. Everything, again, was a bit low to the ground, the reception desk was about three feet off the ground, but other than that and the fact that everything was a bit wider proportionally to the height it seemed like a normal hospital...

As Nurse RedHeart made her rounds her mind had drifted from her usual duties to the weird creature that now inhabited room 4-12.

it was clearly mammalian, bipedal, but it was as tall as Celestia! It had no fur except on its chest, forearms, legs, and top of its head but it really couldn't be considered fur, almost like a mane, well, except for the body hair...It was definitely male and somehow it landed in the woods outside and was found by one of the patients who was on a "nature walk" to get some fresh air, there was so much blood, a-

Her attention was drawn to something red on the floor.

Did somepony forget to put the old bandages in the waste bin on the cart before moving them again?

As she followed the trail it led not to the nurse's station as she expected but to the stairwell and her calm demeanor was shattered in an instant and replaced with one of deep concern for her patient.

It ran away?! With those wounds?!

In a panic, she rushed behind the desk, broke the glass and sounded the alarm on the wall. She wasn't worried about what the creature might do to somepony, but what it would inadvertently do to itself, with those wounds and the rate it must be moving they would surely open again. If it wasn't treated soon she feared the worst.

Just as she was heading back to her cart to get some much-needed sleep the great and powerful Trixie from her day of kite flying kites with Starlight, who for some reason really liked this activity, she was passing through the park entrance and through town. She always did admire Luna's work on the night sky, it was just so relaxing watching the stars as she fell asleep. She continued her venture home when she noticed a trail on the ground, it was kind of sticky as it matted the fur near the bottom of her leg just above her hoof, her curiosity piqued, she followed the trail wondering what the substance was. It led through town and to the market, it had left large pools in its wake, meaning whatever was causing it must have stopped for a moment.

Who would carry around red paint at a time like this? They really should be more careful, it is not as easy as ponies think to clean off acrylic paint, Trixie would know...

She looked about and found it continued down an alleyway between two shops that had long since closed for the evening. Throwing caution to the wind she ventured down the dark alley, sure Ponyville was perfectly safe even at night, but this was just a bit creepy for the show mare. She went further down the alley and next to a dumpster she found the source, whatever it was it was bleeding a lot considering she had been following the trail for fifteen minutes, even with it stopping periodically which left a well-sized blood stain on the cobblestone road every couple hundred feet. Not knowing what to do or if this thing was even alive she ran for help.

It was past one in the morning at this point and Twilight was more than enjoying her much needed sleep, her snores echoed back at her in her large crystalline room, it was peac-

"Twilight!!!"

And there it went, ugh, couldn't Trixie just wait till she got up to hang out? Late night kite flying ventures are fine but Twilight didn't see the need to impose the activity on her, she just had no interest in kit-

"Twilight!!!" Trixie called again this time sounding closer.

Ugh, why wasn't Spike dealing with Trixie? Twilight had spent all day dealing with mail and public appearance requests, i-

Twilight!!!" Trixie screamed mere inches from Twilight's face, bloodshot eyes, a hysterical look on her face.

"Trixie, what is it? Did your kite fly away again? I know you and Starlight made it together but tracking it with magic takes a toll on me, can't we look for it la-"

"Be quiet! I found a trail of blood in town and it led to something in the alley between that ridiculous fan supply store and the empty building next to it!"

"Wait, what?!" This had Twilight's full attention now, she looked down at Trixie's hooves and there were indeed slight red smears on them, and on her comforter.

"Follow me!" Trixie commanded before bolting out of Twilight's room, the alicorn followed right behind her to the aforementioned alley, when they got there the body was gone.

"B- Whe- It was right here!" Trixie stammered.

"Did you really smear red paint on your hooves to prank me Tr-"

"Does this smell like paint to you?!" Trixie thrusted a hoof to Twilight's muzzle, yup, blood.

"So where could it have gone?"

Twilight looked around and saw a few hoof prints with the slightest red outline on them, whoever carried it away also left a trail, "Let's go."

The two followed the trail back to the hospital and burst through the entrance, startling the elderly mare working the early morning receptionist shift.

"How may I help you, princess?" The mare asked as she got up and walked around the desk to greet them.

"We followed a trail of blood here, is the pony okay?"

"Oh, that, one of our more exotic patients made a break for it and his wounds opened up before he could make it anywhere, Nurse Redheart followed the trail into town and we had some of the staff carry him on a stretcher back to his room."

"Exotic? How exotic? Like a gryphon, or a zebra?"

"Some sort of male, bipedal mammal with a short curly mane, patchy hair, and about as big as one o' the princesses." This caught Twilight's attention.

"Can we see the patient?"

"Why sure, now that he is secured he won't be going anywhere." The mare said as she began walking towards the elevator.

"Is it that dangerous?" Trixie asked as the two followed the senior.

"Pfft, doubtful, it has no horn or wings and is hooked up to so many doo-dads it wouldn't make it outta the hospital again." She said confidently.

"What happened?" Twilight asked, as then the mare told Twilight and Trixie how a foal had found him and how he had landed not in, but above the trees outside the hospital.

"Whatever it is, it had a not so safe landing amongst the branches, one in particular "caught" him hence all the stitches and tubes, he even had a punctured left lung. Mostly fractures though and lacerations beyond the injuries from the branches." She said as they exited the elevator.

"Why did it appear there, how did nopony notice?" Twilight asked.

"We don't know why it is here, and we didn't notice til little Rumble down the hall kicked his ball too hard, and when he went to go get it he said he saw something hurt. When the nurse appointed to him on his little excursion saw it we got it set up as fast as we could. Well, they did, I just got here as we ended visiting hours at seven. Here's the door, and if it tries anything let me Nurse RedHeart know so she can sedate him." She advised before walking back to the elevator, just as they opened the door loud beeping and shallow breathing filled the small room. They looked on in awe at what they saw, a giant monkey looking creature that was half mammal, half machine covered in blood-stained gauze at this point was taking up the entire bed with its legs hanging prominently off the end of the bed frame.

"What is it?" Trixie asked trying to piece together what this thing was.

"I don't know but it must have been scared, why else would it run from a hospital of all places? "

"Maybe it just wanted to go home?"

"Maybe, it doesn't look like it belongs here, but for whatever reason, it is here, and we should see what we can do. maybe it is a whole new species come to visit us." Twilight said hopefully.

"You are being such a princess right now." Trixie commented, only to earn a glare from Twilight, "In a good way!"

"Ugh, you go to the castle and tell Starlight and Spike what happened in the morning, use the guest room, for now, I'm going to wait here and see if it wakes up."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, plus, kites are not appropriate gifts for the injured." Twilight teased, and with that, Trixie left for the castle and Twilight lay down on the couch and went back to sleep, hoping in the morning she could interview the new arrival.