A wilted rose

The darkness was all around him, seeing impenetrable, and suffocating as he tried to move around to find his way out. Trying to traverse this darkness was like being stuck in a mire. With his movements being so slow, he tried calling out for any others. But as he attempted this, he found his voice could only barely croak out any sound.

Only a few attempts before he quieted, feeling excruciating pain in his throat.

After a while, there seemed to be more, he felt his body growing colder and colder. He tried to wrap his arms around himself to keep warm, but to no avail. As the cold grew throughout his body, there came to be a different feeling.

Lower on his body, about where he thought his stomach or abdomen would be, he became aware of a strange sensation.

Where at first, there was a numbness to it, he began to soon feel a strange sensation of both heat and cold, as though the two temperatures were attempting to fight for dominance over this small spot.

His focus began to slip as he tried to think of what was going on. His movements had ceased, along with the shivering as well. But the coldness was still there, ever present in his body.

His eyes were first to begin to feel heavy, as he stood where ever he was in this darkness. As he blinked, still looking out into the ever-present darkness, he began to feel his body growing heavier and heavier. He tried to fight it, at least, at first.

He worked his mind to try and move his body forward, but it seemed to not want to respond. As he struggled to get his body to move, his eyes became even heavier and he began to lean forward. A second later, he felt his body heave forward. At least, that’s what he hoped it was.

To his mind, it felt as though the world of darkness, of nothing, all around him shifted and tilted until it forced him onto his knees.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to breath in and to regain his strength so he could try again. Now, though, it felt as though the rest of his body was falling forward, the darkness not only closed in around him, it felt as though it was penetrating into his mouth. Filling his lungs with a numbing coldness that further seemed to make him weary.

‘So, tired... I... I don’t...’

He shook his head trying to get his thoughts to form, but now there came a small ache as he did so.

‘I don’t what, though? I...’ His body felt pulled closer to whatever ground was within this cold, lonely darkness.

Again, he tried to fight it, this time by working to lift his head and move an arm out to the ground. He wanted to push against this darkness, but he didn’t know why, or even what it was.

‘Don’t fight it. It’s time to rest now. You’re so tired, so just lay down, curl up, and sleep.’

Came a whispered thought to his mind.

It sent a strange feeling through him as he heard it, like a chill down his spine, but he still couldn’t tell. Everything now seemed to be nothing at all, he couldn’t tell where his body was, where he was. All he knew was how cold, and tired he was.

‘Yes, lay down, and sleep. It will be better with sleep.’ Came the voice, yet again.

He couldn’t help but to agree. He only felt a strange heaviness, through and through, as well as being tired.

'Yeah, sleep... That... Sounds.... Goo-’ As his last thought seemed to flicker out, there came something strange and seemingly alien to him now suddenly.

He couldn’t figure out what it was, but there was something there, keeping him from sleeping. At first, he couldn’t understand it, he wanted to curl up now and sleep, he was still so tired. Yet, whatever was going on, it seemed to persist, and as it continued, he began to think again.

He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed as though something clung to his thoughts, something heavy that seemed to spread out.

His eyes opened, his mouth clenched his jaw shut as his thoughts flared again at what was going on. It seemed his mind comprehended what was going on faster than his thoughts could figure it out.

Instinctively, he knew what this was, he knew it intimately as he experienced so many times before.

Pain.

The flaring of heat and cold seemed to pierce through him suddenly, waking him completely. The darkness still permeated all around him, but it didn’t seem to matter as this new feeling brought to him waves of fresh pain.

His body twitched, spasm, jerked, trying to comprehend the sensations as they drove through him as if not to be ignored.

So much did it fill his entire being so suddenly, it even waged war with the sensation of sleep, he could feel something erupting from within him. Before it came out, he looked down to see red where his stomach was. That as here the pain as coming from.

His eyes widened, before the feeling that had been filling him completely came out, erupting into screams. The sound was horrifying, but he knew it, despite being everything, it was the sound of his own voice, something he had nearly forgotten in this place.

His body shook, now, and suddenly as if in a rush, there was a flash of light.

Light appeared overhead on a ceiling as his eyes opened, and his body twitched before it stiffened up. Once more, pain filled his entire being, bringing him to thrust his chest up into the air, as he screamed.

He could hear nothing else, could sense nothing else though some part of his mind barely caught up to his other senses and understood there were things going on.

A shadow appeared over him, blurred by the light overhead of them both, covering its features before he felt a sharp pain in his arm and suddenly his beating heart began to slow.

As his body fell back onto something soft, he could barely hear the murmurings of something. As darkness once again began to creep up to the edges of his sight, he caught that it was a voice.

Someone was trying to speak to him, soothingly, he felt something soft brush against part of his body as though it was a soothing gesture. As the darkness began to take over, one final alarm went off in his mind.

The darkness, where he wanted to sleep, it wasn’t a good place. He wasn’t ready to go back. His heart sped up again, and his eyes widened as he tried to fight the effects of sleep and the darkness.

The part of his mind that was focused on more instinct, and primal things, knew this old nemesis as what was the cold hand of death, and it wanted him. It wanted him something fierce, as it had tried taking him many times before and had always just lost him out of its reach. This was the closest he had ever come, even closer than several years before when he had tried to give himself over.

As he tried to lift his head, his peripherals caught the shadow that had been above him had suddenly moved beside him to keep from getting hit. There was an instant that he saw something white, pink, and a pair of eyes with concern, worry, and fear.

His heart beat harder, and faster now as noise, sounds of others, as well as things around him seemed to crash against his ears in a cacophony.

Almost as suddenly as the rush of fear came it to him, then it began to ebb and flow out of him. His head fell back his eyes rolling up, once more he felt tired and heavy.

Though, now, somewhere in his mind, he knew he would not be going back to that same darkness. Yet.

Twilight and Fluttershy had both entered through the door at the Ponyville hospital, followed by a large brown bear, carrying something on its back.

“Princess Twilight? Ms. Fluttershy? What are you doing...,” Looking and seeing the large bear behind them, she gulped and glance back barely able to finish her sentence with a whisper, “here?”

Twilight quickly spoke to Nurse Redheart and explained they needed help, and with a new creature to their world.

Nurse Redheart tried to argue they were not an animal hospital, but when the bear turned and showed the human on its back, she arched an eyebrow. She looked in shock to Twilight, unsure of what else to say or do. She had never seen a pony that looked like this before.

She asked if it had been in some accident, or had some sort of birth defect.

Twilight explained what the human was, and said he was not an animal, and needed more help than Fluttershy could give, he needed help from a real doctor.

Skeptical, Nurse Redheart called the emergency over the com, calling for a doctor.

Another hurried explanation to the doctor, and a few other staff members, and a promise to cover the expenditures whether they could help or not got the group working to rush the human into intensive care.

It seemed minutes after, as they removed the layers clothing and began to inspect it, they found the wound, which the doctor was able to specify was from a blade, and the bruises were from a confrontation of some sort.

Once they began to check his vitals and get him connected to machines, they found the heart rate had slowed considerably, when he went into cardiac arrest.

The nurses and doctor rushed with everything they could do. It wasn’t until the doctor tried to use magic that he then fainted. As he worked the magic over the humans body.

The nurses worked to get him revived, and twilight rushed into the room. She looked embarrassed and apologized as Nurse Redheart worked to get her out of the room so they could work on the human.

“No, wait, you need to know, you can’t use magic on him. For some reason, magic doesn’t work and it will drain you.” She called out as she was pushed back through the doors.

Hampered by this new development, the nurses, and the doctor tried to get back to work. That was until the body of the human stopped thrashing about, and the monitor they had barely hooked up to him showed him flat lining.

They did their best to bring him back, having to do things with gloves and more to work on him.

They fought to bring the human back, and every time it seemed they were successful and began to work on the wound at the side of his stomach, he would begin to flatline again.

It wasn’t until half an hour later, that they could no longer bring him back no matter what they tried. Just as the doctor, more than weary from the draining of his magic, that he could no longer help the human, he looked up at the clock.

As he opened his mouth to utter the time of death, the man seized and began to scream, fighting against the restraints. His chest was raised as far as the straps would allow him, his fists clenched. He screamed out loudly, scaring the others.

Nurse Redheart entered in and went to work with an anesthetic to help calm the patient as he had suddenly began to thrash about, and scared the other nurses so that they refused to come close again. The doctor once more went back to work on his task of finishing cleaning and stitching the wound.

Nurse Redheart seemed capable of getting the man to calm, as his body took in the sedative. But just as his eyes began to close, he began to fight once again.

His limbs flailing, even though they were hampered by the restraints, one foot was still able to knock over a small metal table of gauze, and tools, the doctor had to scream at the other nurses to help get the man restrained as Nurse Redheart moved back to keep from getting hit by the man as his now lifted his head suddenly.

As suddenly as it all started, it seemed to stop, as his body fell back to the bed and began to grow limp as the sedative more than took over to force him into sleep.

Hours passed by, as the human slept, covered by several blankets to fight what appeared to be the beginning stages of a fever.

Nurse Redheart was able to speak with Twilight and let her know the human was resting, finally.

With a little more study of his vitals, she and Fluttershy were finally allowed in to see the human for only a few minutes.

When asked for information, they had none to give, other than Fluttershy’s record of finding him at the edge of the woods and trying to treat him.

Time passed slowly before long Fluttershy had to excuse herself to go tend to her animals. With a brief hug, Twilight wished her well.

Twilight wanted to remain until the human was able to wake again. She wanted to speak to him and try to find out how he had gotten to their world.

Once again she found herself glancing up at a clock for the time and heaved another sigh as she watched the large hand slowly tick upwards.

She considered the things she had for the day, and knew she had more than enough tie to get them done. She also had Spike to help her whenever she needed, which he would no doubt be waking up soon as the rays of Celestia’s sun began to come up over the trees in the distance.

She knew he could basically take care of himself, including fixing his own meals, and doing the chores he needed to do, but she was a little concerned. Spike had just gotten a new stack of comics sent into him just the other day and he had been trying to get ahead of the schedule Twilight had set for him to find the time to read them.

She took a moment to think this over, lifting a hoof up to her chin. She also had Starlight Glimmer in town a swell, living in a home as her new apprentice. She and Spike had been through a lot recently with all of the time travel shenanigans, Starlight had put them through.

Perhaps there was something she could do to have Starlight busy enough for a while, and give Spike the day off. The castle was still nearly immaculate, just a couple of dishes left over from dinner. Twilight had promised to finish those off while Spike grabbed his first comic and had turned in early.

She had been nearly through when Fluttershy’s animals had come barging in. She had assured Spike everything would be okay before she left. He had heard the commotion and was understandably concerned.

Looking up to the clock and seeing it slowly tick over another minute she rustled her feathers slightly in annoyance, before glancing down the hall to the room where the human was. She huffed and settled herself as she got up.

Trotting over quickly to the Nurse’s counter, she explained she would be back soon to check on the progress of the human after she was able to tend to a few things.

The nurse politely assured Twilight they would have everything taken care of, and if the princess needed to go home and rest everything was in good hands.

Twilight held no doubts, but she still had it in mind to talk to him as soon as possible.

She had taken a moment before she left to consider if it was necessary to have any royal guard positioned at the Hospital.

As soon as she thought that, she immediately remembered her time at Canterlot High in the world on the other side of the mirror.

Twilight began to walk out the hospital, her mind immediately wondering if perhaps the Human who had been found had found another mirror portal to her world. If that was the case then it was somewhere in the White Tail woods, at least that’s what logic would dictate since that was where Fluttershy had found him.

Twilight continued on autopilot as she made her way back to the castle, her mind filling with possibilities, and wondering what this would entail. She did know she had to get a letter to Celestia and Luna since they were the ones who told her about the mirror after Sunset had stole her crown right after her coronation all that time ago.

As she continued, now walking up the steps of the castle, her mind seemed to begin to work out ideas and thoughts and began to organize them to find the most efficient way to do things.

Still wrapped in a few wayward bandages that had not been completely removed out of fear of taxing more unicorn magic, the human let out a groan and titled his head.

He tried to open his eyes, only to cringe and close them again immediately at the bright light of the morning sunlight coming in through a nearby window.

Feeling the vestiges of a headache, he tried to lift his hand to his head to rub away the rest of the pain. However, he found he could not as the sound of something clinking caught his attention. He lifted his ehad ever so slightly and lifted his arm again. HE found he could only lift it a couple of inches from a metal bar at the side of a bed.

Brows furrowing, he looked over his form covered in blankets, then spotted some wires coming from his chest. He followed them with his eyes to spot a monitor that was showing his vitals, his heartrate has increased ever so slightly. Looking around to see a white and clean sterile room, his mind seemed to make the connection that he was in a hospital of some sort.

Dropping his head back onto the small pillow, he looked up to the ceiling trying his best to remember what had happened that he found himself in a hospital. As he searched his memories, all of which were slow to come, and unclear at this time, he found himself frustrated.

Closing his eyes he did his best to relax, let his mind wander as he listened to the sound of the heart monitors intermittent beeps.

It was at this time he heard the door open.

Someone was coming to check up on him, though his brows furrowed more now as he heard a strange sound. It was odd, he wasn’t sure what to make of it immediately, until he realized as he searched his mind it sounded almost like a woman in heels.

He thought it was strange as he never saw or heard for that matter a medical personal who wore heels. They always wore the most comfortable shoes they could to avoid back, leg, and other pains that could develop since they were supposedly always on their feet. Now that eh thought about it, it didn’t sound like one pair but multiple, maybe two or three? He wasn’t sure.

“Well, either you’re awake, or you’re having a nightmare. And since your heart rate is this calm, good morning.” Came a female’s voice. She sounded nice and lovely, but he didn’t want to get distracted just because he had not been with a woman in a while.

“Sor-” He took a moment to feel his dry throat and the pain that accompanied it as he tried to speak. He took a few moments to use his saliva to wet his throat before clearing it and trying again.

“Need some water? No worries, I’ll be right back with that.” He could hear the sound, or multiple sounds again as he heard the woman walking away.

He felt it odd, unless, to his mind as far as he could consider it, she was being “Shadowed” by a nurse in training and nothing was happening at the moment that she had to do anything but shadow her mentor. Though why she had to follow her just to get him a small cup of water didn’t make any sense.

As he heard the faucet turn on, he decided to open his eyes now, though carefully this time so as not to blind himself again.

As he glanced over to the sound of the water just as it turned ff, he squinted. What he saw was the strangest thing he had ever encountered, and he considered himself unfortunate enough to encounter many, MANY, strange things in his life.

There across the way, at a small sink he had not seen before, was what looked like a small horse wearing a hat. She stood on her hind legs, one front leg on the faucet, the other with a small cup now filled with water.

He wanted to rub his eyes, but the jingling of the padded cuffs at his wrists reminded him he couldn’t. He glance away to look at them in frustration before turning back to see the horse turning around and walking towards him. He looked down as he heard that familiar sound of heels and realized it was only from one nurse, and it wasn’t heels, it was from horseshoes.

Despite having been born on a farm early in life, he had not been raised around farm animals. So the sounds of horseshoes on anything was rare in his memories. He looked back up at her, which made her flinched seeing his seemingly aggressive look.

He stared at her, his mouth seeming to come unhinged. She was white, with pink hair, and the small white cap on top of her head had a small red cross in its center

Blinking several times, he moved his head forward ever so slightly, squinting his eyes as though hoping this would allow whatever delusion he had to go away and give him a true view of what he was seeing. Though this did not work as he continued to stare.

She began to blush slightly, unsure of what he was doing, or why he was looking at her in the way he was.

With a small jolt, she realized that he was a different species; different than anything she had ever seen before last night, so in light of this, she was probably just as strange to him as he was to her.

“Um...” she began, her blush filling her cheeks ever so slightly more. As she stood there, unsure of what was going to happen, she realized she still had a glass of water in her hoof when she began to move her leg and nearly spilled it. “Oh, dear. I suppose you still need this. Here.” She said as she took a few steps closer and held the cup out to him.

He looked down at the cup in her outstretched hoof, and moved his head as far as it could go to place his lips on its edge. He pulled ever so slightly down on the lip of the cup and began to sip the water slowly, making a loud slurping noise as he did so.

When the water was too low for him to get any more, he pulled away, swallowing several times to make sure his throat was no longer dry.

“Thank you,” he said automatically. His voice was no longer gravelly as it had from the dryness as it had been before. His voice was clear, not too deep, and seemed a bit on the nasally side.

The horse smiled at him, “Well, at least you’re polite.” She said, a bit of hope in her voice.

Turning to her right, she placed the cup on a small table near the head of his bed. “Well, my name is Nurse Redheart. Sorry I don’t usually give introductions to,” She paused trying to remember if she saw his name on the charts or not, “Humans.” She finished lamely.

The human gave her a perplexed look, at least she thought it might have been, she wasn’t sure cause every time he looked at her with his eyebrows drawn down, and the slightest frown she thought he look mad.

“So... You’re not a figment of my imagination, and you really are a... Small horse?” he asked. The way he pitched the last words, seemed more like a question.

“Pony,” she easily corrected.

“But... Isn’t that what a small horse is? A pony?”

Nurse Redheart offered a small strained smile, trying to be as polite as she could. “Do, you have ponies, or small horses where you’re from?”

“As far as I know, yes. I don’t have much experience with them. Always thought it was strange when people would make jokes of little girls always wanting a pony for a birthday, but whatever.” He finished with a shrug and a shake of his head.

Nurse Redheart smiled again, a little wider, unsure if he was just making conversation, a joke, or what. She didn’t feel offended by what he was saying, just confused. She watched as he began to look around the bed, and then down to his limbs.

He moved them around a little, as if trying to get comfortable with the padded cuffs, then he moved his lower limbs around a bit under the blankets. Another familiar clinking could be heard as he became aware of the ones on those as well. He laid his head back with a sigh of resignation.

“Oh, sorry sir, but you caused a little bit of trouble last night and were thrashing about.” Redheart explained. Her eyes widened as she realized she still didn’t have his name. “Oh, I almost forgot, we need to fill out some medical forms, and we will at the very least need your name.”

The man had been wincing in a little bit of pain from his stomach, as she explained everything. HE looked over at her when she asked his name before turning back to look up at the ceiling.

He wasn’t sure if it was right to give his real name, due to still believing he had gone insane and was now seeing a colored talking pony.

As he mulled the thought over for a second, his eyebrows lifted a she thought of something, ‘Well, I’m a Taurus, maybe they won’t know that isn’t my real name. I don’t even know where I am. Well, no, Taurus, who really wants to walk around with a name like that? Eh, doesn’t suit me anyways. Hmm, Maybe Tauren, no wait.’ He thought of something finally as it seemed to flash in his mind.

“Uh, Terren is my name.” He said looking back at Nurse Redheart with a half smile.

“Oh, Terren, that’s interesting, and how do you spell it?”

“T-E-R-R-E-N. Terren,” He explained quickly, his smile widening. Yes, that seems nice, I like it, seems to work nice as an alibi.

“Okay, and where are you from, Terren?” Nurse Redheart asked as she walked over to a chart and began writing on it with a quill she picked up from nearby. The Paper seemed to be clipped to a board that was connected to the wall, and on a small shelf was a few quills and an ink well.

Terren looked at it curiously, he felt a strange sense come over him as he watched her, before trying to think back. His brows furrowed as he tried to remember, “Uh, Earth?” He offered vaguely.

Nurse Redheart raised an eyebrow at him, “Town, city, village? Desert, Woods? Ocean? General location with a street address would be best...”

Once more, he tried his best to think back, he even closed his eyes to try and focus, at least until a sudden jarring pain filled the top and back end of his head. He grunted, and groaned, as it assaulted him.

“Hmmm, severe headache? Where does it hurt?” Nurse Redheart inquired as she set the quill down and walked over to him. When he did his best to describe the location, as well as provide the intensity of the pain, she had him lean forward as far as possible to look. There she could see just in his mane, despite it being short and thick, there was a little bit of dried blood.

“Well, it would appear you sustained head trauma, and recently. I had better get the doctor to look at this. It may be the cause of the pain, and keeping you from remembering important information.

“So, wait. You took me in last night, tied me to a bed, and you have no idea who I am, where I am from, and you barely seem to understand that I am human?”

Well, Princess Twilight said you were found at the edge of our woods, and when you were brought in, yes you were practically dying on us. We did our best to stitch you up-”

“Stitch me up!?” Terren asked suddenly.

“Yes, we found a stab wound on you. Your stomach,” She explained as she pulled the blanket back just far enough to show a slightly red square patch of gauze. “Perhaps try not to move around so much. I will see about getting a fresh cover for your stitches.”

Seeing Terren shiver, eyes wide, she covered him back up and eased him into his previous laying position and waited until he was calmed before leaving to fetch the doctor.

After some time, of the doctor checking him over, Nurse Redheart changing his cover for his stitches that had been tugged just enough to bleed slightly. Terren was informed that due to his head injury, he would probably have a short term memory loss due to the trauma he had incurred.

During this, he had received a brief head cleaning, then his head was bandaged, while older thinner strands of gauze had been removed. HE had been told a local had found him and took him to their home, not realizing how badly he had been injured.

The doctor was a brown Unicorn stallion, with a white coat, and a pair of small black glasses, his mane and tail a lighter brown color who seemed a bit huffy with Terren.

When he had left, he had been told that before they got him tied to the bed, he had accidentally kicked the doctor in the face, and knocked over some utensils.

Terren asked that his apologies be sent to the doctor, as well as a thank you for staying with him to help.

He was then informed that word had been sent to the two ponies who had helped bring him in.

Terren shrugged at this, not sure what to say really. He figured he would offer his thanks, then try and figure out what fresh hell he had been sent to.

He did, to Nurse Redhearts surprise, ask if he could have a full head examination.

When asked why, he bit his lip, and seemed to shake his head and said, “nevermind”.

He really didn’t want them thinking he was insane as he was thinking.

So, he remained in his bed, not doing anything more than thinking, trying to remember what was going on. He could easily remember who he was, but not really where he was from, or what had happened that he wound up with ponies in a hospital beat up from an altercation.

As he sat, wondering about all of this, he suddenly realized he was missing something. He looked around, and began trying to think. He needed to ask where his bag was. He was beginning to remember he had a bunch of stuff stashed away in a bag of his.

With a sigh, he laid back. He would have to wait for one of the ponies to come back so he could ask them where his stuff was, if they even knew.