Conflicting Conflicts

Chapter 5

"What the hell, Gilda?" I wheezed.

"Fight me." Gilda said.

I looked at her in bewilderment. She must really have a screw loose. I stayed on the ground where I was, looking at her. She returned my gaze with an apathetic glare. She had the glare of a Soviet Soldier, one you could tell was formed by insurmountable amounts of pain and sorrow.

"Get the FUCK up and fight me."

I kept my posture. I didn't want to fight her, she's still my friend. I might be built myself, but Gilda has a four inch height advantage on me. Not to mention that she's stocky. She started to stomp over to me. I readjusted onto my rear and put my hands out towards her, for defense. It didn't stop her. She kicked me in the side of the thigh with her steel toe boots. It didn't feel all too well.

"Gilda, stop." I said in a calm, stern tone.

She went to kick me again, but I caught her foot in my hands. She took the moment to tackle me on the ground, pinning my legs. I guarded my face in anticipation, and my predictions were correct. She started throwing hammer fists at my head, but I positioned my arms well enough to where she couldn't do any real damage.

"Gilda, stop! This isn't going to fix anything!" I shouted.

"Fucking-itch! I-waite-or-you!" Is all I could hear through the sounds of impact.

A punch got through, and I felt pain on the edge of my brow. I finally decided that repeated head trauma wasn't good for me, and took the time in between her punches to wrap my arms around her midriff. We're both breathing heavy now, and Gilda's attempting to push my arms off of her.

"Gilda.... stop." I said, between breaths.

"Not until I'm done with you." She growled, "Get your fucking hands off me!"

"No." I said, not budging, "This isn't going to make you feel better."

She didn't respond. She was focused on getting me off of her. I didn't lose my grip. She eventually just groaned in frustration, and started wailing into my back. I tried to push her over, but I only lifted one of her legs off of the ground a bit. I was losing my breath as she kept hitting me. I guess my adrenaline finally kicked into overdrive, because the second attempt at pushing Gilda over worked. I made quick work of pinning her arms down at her sides, and sitting on her. She kept wriggling under my weight as I tried to regain my breath.

"Let me go!" Gilda screamed, her voice noticeably breaking.

"No." I responded.

Her wriggling became more violent for a few seconds before I guess she ran out of energy. Gilda began to cry. I never liked seeing her cry.

"Why her?" She screamed.

"What?" I breathed out.

"She's never been there for you! I've been here the whole fucking time, man!"

I then realized who she was referring to as "Her.".

"Is this what this is all about? Rarity?" I asked.

She only cried more in response. The doors I previously busted out of burst open once more. Vice Principal Luna quickly walked over to where we laid.

"What the hell is going on here?" Luna shouted. She pushed me off of Gilda, and I made sure to stand just in case of another attack. Gilda didn't get up to beat on me more, she rolled onto her side, still sobbing. Luna crouched and put a hand on Gilda's side.

"Do you mind telling what happened, Anonymous?" Luna said, shooting me a glare.

"Gilda pushed me out here to beat me up." I said, "I used self-defense."

Luna squinted at me, "Are you sure that's what happened?"

Alright, Ass hat. I'll play that game.

".....Yeah. Were you not here for the part where she proceeded to attempt to beat me to a pulp?" I gasped sarcastically, "Oh yeah, that's right. You weren't there."

That gasp didn't sit with me well. I started to feel light-headed.

"Anonymous Johnson! That attitude isn't going to get you anywhere with this!" Luna replied.

My ears started to ring, and it became hard to breathe for some reason. I bent over to catch my breath.

"Hang on a second. I'm not feeling right." I said, though it came out a little slurred.

Gilda must've actually fucked me up.

"Anonymous?" Luna asked cautiously.

I looked up at her, and her face was the last thing I saw before everything went black. As it turns out, receiving full-force head punches from a 6'3", 240 pound lady doesn't exactly leave you in the best condition. I woke up to the sounds of ambulance sirens. My vision was slightly blurry, but I could make out that I was laying down in the back of an ambulance. I saw a lady just a bit out of my vision.

"Hi." I said, voice slurring from the head trauma.

"Hi." She replied. The lady had pale pink hair, kind've like Fluttershy.

"Why am I in here?" I asked.

"You got your head bumped a few too many times."

"Oh."

I finally noticed the numbness of the ice bag placed on my head.

"Man, I must've really screwed something up."

The lady giggled a little bit. "Yeah. Hey, what's today's date?"

"What?"

"Today's date? What is it? I need to ask you questions now, to keep you awake."

"Oh. That sounds like a good idea."

I thought for a moment, but thinking brought the pain in my head out.

"I dunno." I said.

"That's ok." She said, "What's your name?"

"Oh, that's easy. Anonymous."

"Nice to meet you, Anonymous. I'm Nurse Redheart."

"You're a pretty lady. You have a pretty name."

She laughed. My subconscious self thought back to why I'm in this ambulance right now, and my dopey smile quickly turned into a frown. I started tearing up.

"My best friend hates me." I said, choking out the words.

Redheart's eyebrows lifted inwards. "Why do you say that, Anon?"

"Because she's the one who did this to me."

Redheart was visibly sad, and she stayed silent. I looked at the ambulance's ceiling, letting tears run down the side of my face. This happened for a short bit before the vehicle came to a stop. Redheart and the driver pulled me out on a stretcher through the building, the fluorescent lights partially blinding me as we passed any. Another man caught up to speed with us. He had a white coat on, so he must've been a doctor. I couldn't make out what they were saying, because my ears started to ring again. The rest of the time entering the hospital was a blur. I faintly remember them putting me through a CT scan, but my memory is foggy during the time I was there. I regained full consciousness on one of those medical beds, in a hospital room. I was the only one in the room. I looked out the window to see a fairly dense fog covering the city. The fog's pure white brightness lit up the room as if I was in purgatory.

I wish I was, honestly.

My phone buzzed on the pullout table that was hovering over me at chest height. I picked it up to read a wall of texts. Most were from Rarity. I developed a mildly upset stomach, panning through the levels of panic I could read in her texts.

"Hey love. Where are you?"

"Home Ec was gross. We made oreo balls."

"Omg WHERE ARE YOU?????"

-Missed Call: Rarity (2)-

"PLEASE TELL ME YOURE NOT DEAD"

-Missed Call: Rarity (4)-

Shit. Now she's stressed out.

"I'm fine." I replied.

I bet she's just as heart breaking as Gilda is when she cries.

Shit. Gilda. Why, Gilda? What drove you to do this?

'You can answer that, asshat.' My thoughts replied.

I guess so. I really am oblivious if I didn't take the hints. This is all my fault. I'm disgusting. I should be-

I should listen to music, is what I should do. I reached in my pocket to see if my earphones were still there. Thank god, they were. I popped them on, and turned on some music to drown my thoughts out.

-Stars Of The Lid: Even If You're Never Awake-

I closed my eyes, and just droned out to the music. I began to cry, but my head hurt, so I suppressed the feeling. I felt a hand tap my shoulder halfway through the song. I opened my eyes and took off my earphones to see a doctor, holding a clipboard.

"Hey." I said.

"Hello." He replied, "Your name is Anonymous, yes?"

"Last time I checked."

He smirked. "Well, nice to meet you, Anonymous. I'm Dr. Horse." Dr. Horse looked at his clipboard. "It says here you suffered a pretty good concussion."

"You know as much as I do." I responded.

"I think that's enough evidence to say that the information is correct." He chuckled.

I giggled in response.

"Well, Anon, we ran a CT test on you yesterday, and the diagram certainly showed us some symbols of head trauma." He pulled out a laminated sheet from under the top paper of his clipboard and handed it to me.

The paper showed what I guess was my brain, and there were yellowish-orange blots on the middle parts of each side of my brain.

"So, this isn't good, I'm presuming?" I asked.

"Well, it's not what an uninjured brain shows, usually. There should be more orange in the colored areas, to put it in simple terms. The good thing is that yours didn't show up too severe."

"Ah. I think I understand now."

"Right? Now, Anon, if you wouldn't mind, I need you to sit up, if you can. Slowly, though."

I corresponded. I felt the slightest bit of nausea when I did.

"Do you feel anything? Wooziness? Vertigo?" Dr. Horse asked.

"Just a bit of nausea." I replied.

"That's fairly natural. You did get your head rattled a bit. Now, can you stand?"

I slipped off of the bed and stood easily.

"Nothing now?" He asked again.

"Nothing past the nausea."

"That's good." He wrote something down on his clipboard, "Let's run some simple cognitive tests now."

I went through the motions with the doctor, and got the all clear. It's a good thing I'm on the rich side, my insurance basically covered everything, even the medication. I walked out of the hospital with the doctor.

"Make sure to take that medication. If any symptoms persist, come straight back here, ok? Otherwise, you're good to go." Dr. Horse told me.

"10-4." I responded.

He smiled, and slapped me on the shoulder. "We'll be here." He walked back into the hospital, back to work.

It's a good thing Canterlot is relatively small.