Equestrians Veterans Society

I made a sweeping gesture to the group. “All right, gather up, take a seat, bring your food if you’ve got it. We’re here to talk, so--start talking.” The room went quiet as the few people adjusted in their seats. I pointed to the zebra. “Alright stripes lets start with you.”

The zebra pointed at himself. “Me? Well, ok. My name’s Doctor Sing-Song and I’m a general practitioner working for Manehatten General Care Hospital.” He spoke with a clean accent, something I’d expect out of a pony or a human, not a zebra.

I turned my chair towards the doctor. “ Alright, so what happened to you? No offence, but I set this up for veterans, not doctors with survivor’s guilt.”

The doctor looked at me with a slight glare. “My story isnt about some patient I’ve lost or guilt for not giving out enough meds to ponies. You think I don’t know why I’m here!? You want me to tell you!?”

I nodded. “That’s why we’re here.”

The doctors eyes began to slowly glaze over. “It wasn’t even that long ago. Ponies-- zebras, we’re all too old for what happened, but it still...it just happened, and I could stop it…” He rambled on, lost in his own head. He was going back to that day. You couldn’t stop his story even if you wanted to.

***

I was looking over the latest patients charts. He was a human that had broken his arm earlier that day and he needed his gauze changed. I looked over the the unicorn nurse that was assisting me at that time. “Nurse, can you go to the supply closet and fetch a set of gauze for the me? I’m all out and I still need to finish wrapping this patient's arm.”

The nurse made a trot towards the door. ”Yes doctor, I’ll be back in a moment.”

I glanced back over in the nurses direction. “Thank you nurse.” I turned back to the patient. “Seems like a lot of humans end up here. Okay then, tell me again how you managed a compound fracture by falling off a street curb?”

The patient looked up at me with an embarrassed look. “Well doc, I don’t really know what to tell you but it felt like someone was stabbing my leg with the biggest fricken knife ever made. How bad was the break though?”

I pulled out the patients x-ray giving a quick glance. “ Well, the extent of your injury wasn’t too bad, easily managed but you’ll be in a cast for a few months. You broke both your ulna and your radius, sprained your wrist, and it looks like you over stressed you shoulder and elbow joints. Although it seems your humerus didn’t suffer any damage. We were able to reset the forearm bones fairly easy because is was a clean break, but it did stab through the skin. Again, all in all, nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a good dose of meds and some time to let the injury heal”

I started to walk to the door to look out the hallway. “I was hoping the nurse would be back by now, the bleeding is controlled and you’re not in a any danger, but I’d like to add a bit more wrapping before we move you to get an arm cast” I looked out into the hall, the clean white, sterile environment, devoid of the sound of clattering hooves or feet.

I paused for a bit, watching the patient scratch at his stitches. As I walked back in the nurse trotted up next to me with the packaged gauze on a medical tray with medical tape as well. “Here you are doctor. The closet was low on supplies so I had to go down a floor for the supplies.”

“Thank you nurse.” I motioned to the door. “ Could you go and get the next three or so charts for the next set of patients?”

“Yes doctor, I'll meet you in the next patient’s room and I’ll have somepony restock the supply closet on this floor.” The nurse made her way back out of the room.

I picked up the medical chart for the patient. “Well if everything goes well, the you should be out of here sometime today, with a bottle of painkillers and a fancy new cast to keep that arm immobile while it heals for about three months. You’re lucky, if this break was any worse we would have had to do surgery and set the bones with some screws and metal bracers.”

The patient shifted in the bed a little. “Well, thanks for patching me up Doc. Hopefully I can get some time off from work and rest up for a bit”

I gave a slight grin and chuckle. “Yea, well the injury shouldn’t be keep you off your feet so as long as the job doesn't require you to use both of your arms, you should be good to go. If you need anything just call a nurs--”

At that moment, my pager started beeping. “Uh-oh, its never good when this thing goes off.” I looked down to the little plastic box with a small screen and saw the two words that I hoped that I would never see.

Code Triage, lockdown.

I had to rely on training at this point, I had patients that needed me to step up and keep things in order. I quickly made my way to the door and caught the attention of one of the nurses moving room to room. Her hooves loud as she raced towards me.

“Nurse, What’s the emergency?” I asked in hushed tone

She frantically trotted to me. “Code Triage, doctor, theres an armed assailant on the lower floors. The guards have been alerted but they’ll take time.” She then took a step back and continued down the hall looking into every room and closing the doors.

“Shit shit shit, this is bad.” I looked up down the hall for any sign of somepony else to speak to. I stepped back into the room and took a few deep breaths.

The patient shifted towards me again. “Hey Doc, everything ok? you don’t look so good. I guess if you gonna get sick, a hospital is the place to do it, right?”

I shook my hooves out. I had to start enacting lockdown procedures for patients rooms. “Sir, I need you to listen to me carefully, something has come up and I need to leave and when I do. I’m going to lock the door, and don’t answer it to anyone. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay a little longer than expected”

The man became visibly nervous, twitching slightly as he grabbed the bars of his bed with his unbroken arm. “Doc, I don't know if this is some kinda joke you’re pul-”

I stamped my hoof off the ground hard. “This is no joke sir, now stay calm, Somepony will come and unlock the door until it’s safe, but you keep it locked until then.” I quickly made my way out of the room and down the hall, only leaving after using a special key to lock up. Most of the doors could be locked, but the older ones on this floor could be unlocked by the patient if need be. I had to organize my staff and get everyone situated and safe.

I became acutely aware of just how dire the situation was becoming as nurses were already securing patients rooms and barring doors that led down stairs. there wasn’t much we could do to keep doors closed with chairs and overturned gurneys but it would have to do.

I spotted the nurse that I spoke to moments ago and stopped her. “Nurse, have the doors been secured?”

The nurse nodded. “Yes, all exits have been blocked with what we could find.”

Good, doors are blocked. “Are the patients rooms secured?”

“Yes doctor” She nodded again.

“What about any visitors?” I continued to move down the list.

The nurse looked down the white hall. “Those that were with patients have been secured in those rooms and the visitors in the waiting area have been moved to the designated safe zone.”

“Alright, good job nurse, we need to get the rest of the staff to our safe zone and pack in and wait for the guard. have you heard anything from the lower floors?”

The nurse became pale. “Yes, reports are of a crazed unicorn stallion moving through the hospital with a machete and he’s already attacked several patients. Some with fatal injuries.”

My heart jumped into my throat. “Ok, Im going to make one last round to make sure everything is secure, get yourself and any other staff you see to the designated safe area immediately!” I pointed down the hall for the nurse to get going.

I started down one of the wings and quickly glanced side to side to see that all the doors had been shut. When I reached the end of the hall there was a fire escape with gurney hastily tipped on its side and pushed against the doorway. I could feel myself start to shake from the fear and anxiety of everything that was happening. The sound of injured ponies crying out in agony, calling for help, and begging to be saved, then I heard it. The sounds of someone coming up the stairs, tapping, constant, loud. The pony was muttering something to themselves and laughing from time to time.

He was coming up the stairs, he was coming up the stairs that I was right next to. I had to get out of there. I needed to hide. I ran down the hall trying to gain traction on the smooth tile. I made it to the nurses station in an intersection down the hall from the fire door. I heard the stallion at the end of the hall began yelling and throwing himself into the door, attempting to get in. I quickly got behind the desk and rifled through the counter for anything to defend myself. All I found were small scalpels used to incise boils and abscesses, and a box of syringes. I grabbed a scalpel in the crook of my hoof and and hid behind the counter.

No sooner had I grabbed my improvised weapon, had I heard the door crash open causing the gurney to slide across the floor. He was finally through the door, and his rambling voice echoing down the hall sent a chill down the back of my neck. I could hear him making grunts and half yells, swinging the machete around with his magic as he walked down the hall, banging on all the locked doors along the way. He slashed at everything in the hall that was with in his range. I clutched myself close to the counter I was peeking out from, and covered my mouth as he came closer and closer to the nurses station. I swore I was going to have a heart attack with how fast my heart was beating, mortal fear causing me to shake in place.

Clip, clop, clip, clop, the only sound I could hear as he passed the nurses station and continued down the hall. I heard him stop just a few hoof steps past the nurses station and I hazarded a peak around the corner from my hiding spot, he was staring at one of the doors to a patients room. He had this crazed look in his bloodshot eyes, like everything had finally snapped inside of his head. he may have been moving, but he wasn’t there anymore. Whoever he was, it was gone. Replaced instead by this raving beast..

He stared at the door to room seven-twelve. Little Abigail's room. She was a young human child here being treated for a bad case of pneumonia and fluid in her lungs. The stallion slowly raised his blade and began to slash at the door, smashing his hooves in an attempt to gain entry and swinging the machete into the wood. I knew if he got in he would kill her, there wasn’t any doubt in my mind about it, but all I could do was sit and hope the door held and the guard would make it in time.

He continued to smash into the door until it finally gave way, the lock clattering loudly against the ground. “Theres no way this is happening, theres no way, this stuff doesn't happen,” I whispered to myself. His steps echoed loudly, then went muffled as he stepped into the room. “Turn around, please, turn around.”

“W-who are you?!” I could hear Abigail say. She sounded so weak and frightened. I could hear the stallion start to mutter to himself. All I heard was Abigail scream followed by the dull thud of metal rending flesh from bone as Abigail went silent. The heart monitor that had been beeping rapidly now only held the monotonous tone of a flat line reading.

I had to do something, I could just sit and hide, hoping that someone would stop this mad stallion. I had to move, I couldn’t--wouldn't let him harm anymore of my patients, I needed to act. The sounds of the girl’s screams digging into my neck wasn’t something I could let hit me again. I felt my muscles tense, my heart race, and my stomach began to tighten. I quietly opened the drawer and grabbed as many of the syringes as I could hold in my mouth and pulled the plunger out, filling them all with air. An embolism wouldn’t be instant, but it’d stop him if I could get close enough.

I finally dawned on me, I was about to do the unthinkable, I was about to kill somepony. No he wasn’t a pony anymore, he was a monster that just killed a little girl who couldn’t defend herself. He didn’t give a second thought, so neither could I. He had to die.

I waited for him to walk from the room and begin walking back down the hallway when I made my move. I had to, I’d hesitated too long already and somepony was gone because of it.

I jumped from behind the counter and charged him. Pure adrenaline carried me faster than I’d ever ran before I got him off guard, slamming into his side and taking both of us to the floor. While he was disoriented, I picked myself up and jammed the needles into his neck and upper chest, and then pressed the plungers down hard and quick, causing several of the needles to bend and break inside of his flesh.

The effect was almost immediate, he cried out in pain as air was forced into his veins and muscles, causing the magic around the machete to dissipate. The wet metal cleaver clattered against the floor, filling the halls with a new sound above the beeping machines.

I grabbed the blade and threw it down the hall away from the crazed stallion as he continued to cry out in pain. The air was beginning to circulate and his muscles convulsed, he lost control of his bodily functions making a mess of the floor under him. His breathing became laboured as he attempted to clutch his chest. Heart attack. He slowly began to become still, his body jerking less and less, his breathing stopped. The beeping took hold again as the spastic twitches and flailing stopped.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, the flat tone of the heart monitor in Abigail's room became the dominant sound as I backed away from the body. I began to hear the clatter of metal rushing up the stair from down the hall as several heavily armoured city guards filled the hall and surround myself and the body.

One of the guards started shouting. “Don't move! State your name!”

Another guard came around my flank, cutting me off from the body and forcing me to step back. “No sudden movements, take it easy!”

I responded. “I’m Doctor Sing-Song.” I looked over to the nurse’s station. “Staff files, there.”

A guard checked the station, flipping through folders and papers that littered the station and then stepped forward. “Doctor, are you ok?”

I looked at him and shook my head. “No, I lost one.” I pointed at the corpse. “I couldn’t move.”

Three of the guards surrounded the body, two of which had spear pressed to his neck while the third checked for the pulse that I knew wasn’t there.

The guard turned to the other. “Dead sir.”

The tallest of them all turned to face me. He wore a hard grimace and nodded at me.

As the guards began to clear the rest of the floors and move the wounded from the lower floors I made my way over to Abigail’s. I had to see, something drew me to her room, I’m not sure what but I had to see. In that room was something that would be forever burned into my mind, something that would haunt my every waking hour. Her mangled body where he had stabbed and slashed at her. Blood was everywhere, it was pouring from her stab wounds and from the stump that once was her left arm. Her face was the only thing that wasn’t damaged. Her mouth hung slightly open, lips beginning to turn blue, the rosie red leaving her cheeks, and her cold, faded, soulless eyes staring at me, asking me why I didn’t save her, why I didn’t do something sooner, why didn’t I stop him, why me? Why Abigail? What did she do to deserve this? What did any of them do to deserve this?

***

“I found out later that he was targeting humans. Some job dispute.” The doctor shook his head. “All of that, just because of work.”

I rubbed my mouth. “It’s never just work.”

The doctor looked up at me, mohawk slumped over one side of his head. “It was! I know it was, he--”

I shook my head and held up a finger. “I saw men rip each other apart for a chance at work. I saw men kick each other to death, for opportunity.” I rubbed my eyes and let out a long sigh. “It’s not work, it’s food, it’s fulfillment, it’s betrayal at a system.”

The zebra cocked his head. “You’re defending him!?” His voice high pitched and indignant.

I stared him dead in his grey eyes. “I’m saying there was a reason. Just like there was a reason for you killing him.” I leaned forward, my hands digging into my knees. “You killed, he killed, what’s the difference?”

The zebra stood up. “The difference is I’m supposed to save people! I let him kill someone, I let him! I should have stopped him! I could have stopped him, but I didn’t!” He kicked his chair away and marched up to me. “I could have stopped him sooner! I should have!”

I sat back in my chair. “Remorse is a good difference.” I relaxed and looked him in the eyes. “Remorse is a good start, good as any.”

The doctor glared at me, eyes narrow and watery. “Remorse for what!? Killing him?”

I licked my lips. “Yes, for killing him, for not stopping him, whatever you’re remorseful about!” I leaned forward, my chair creaking under me. “You’re really not a veteran. Being a vet means walking headlong into something you know will be hard, something you know you’ll probably regret. You sign your life to a cause you’re willing to die for--”

“I am willing to die for my cause! Don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not!”

I took a long breath through my nose. “Then act like it. You lost someone, how many did you save?”

The doctor shook his head, not breaking eye contact. “Not enough--”

“How many. Give me a number!”

“Not enough!”

I pointed to the quiet guard. “How many?”

The quiet guard slinked away. “Held the streets while ponies evacuated. I didn’t count.”

I pointed to myself. “Quebec, Montreal, Ontario. I don’t have the population numbers.”

The doctor shook his head. “I lost too many--”

“How many did you save!?” I stood up. “You killed one! You are responsible for one death!”

The zebra shook his head and reared up. “I could have stopped him sooner!”

I leaned over him. “And what if you didn’t stop him after the first? What if you let him go on? How many more would be dead?” I cocked my head. “Too many?”

The zebra settled back onto four legs. “You don’t know what it was like--”

The griffon coughed into his talon. “Arson on a small village, 6 dead.” He gripped his chair, his talons ripping into the underside of the metal. “Don’t tell me I don’t know what they look like, don’t tell me I don’t know what they smell like.”

The zebra turned to face him. “Six?”

The thestral guard scratched at her chair. “Only six?”

The quiet guard shifted uneasily. “You only lost one….”

I stared dead on with the zebra, waiting for him to turn and face me. “You lost one. How many did you save?” I sat back down and pointed to his chair. “We all know what it’s like. You can’t focus on what you lose, you focus on what you saved.” I rubbed my mouth. “And you had a choice, you really need to decide if it would have been better if you’d done nothing or if you did what you could.”

The zebra stood square between us all. “What do you want me to say?”

My chair groaned as I settled back. “I want you to be thankful, some of us couldn’t save anyone.”

The zebra sat down in the middle of the room. “But I could have done more--”

“What was she like?” I scratched the side of my chair. “Abigail.”

The zebra stared at me “Abigail was a human, she was around thirteen or fourteen, around--”

“Was she nice?”

“She was wonderful, full of laughter and smiles no matter what.”

I nodded. “Sounds familiar.” I rubbed my eyes as a few memories of home seeped in. “Sorry you lost her.”

The group bustled softly with condolences. The zebra sighed heavily. “I could have stopped it.”

The griffon’s talons scraped his chair. “You stopped a lot worse from happening. That’s more than some of us could do.”

I turned to the griffon. “So you’re next?”

The griffon shook his head. “Not today….”

I nodded. “I think things went alright for day one anyways, keep this short and...bitter I guess.” I stood up and walked over to the zebra. I ducked down and leaned over towards his ear. “Reflect on what you still have, about what you saved. Those people in that hospital wouldn’t be alive without you.”

The zebra looked at me “Alright, I’ll think about it.”

“Good. Because I guarantee it would have been worse without you there.” I stood and turned to the crowd. “Same time next week.”

I watched them leave, the zebra limping along, head hung low, but eyes scanning. Searching for some reason in what I said. I could only hope he found it.