2 years ago

Dash and Applejack were really close. They often spent their days together after school and always sat in class together. Applejack even wanted to join Dash's football team the next year.

Life was perfect until one fateful day when Dash had gotten a message that Applejacks bake sell was moved to a different day. So when she came to school the next day, Applejack wouldn't talk to her anymore.

"AJ wait! Come on, just let me talk to you!" She yelled after her as Applejack just walked away from her, again. When she finally caught up to her she tried again. "What's the matter with you?! Why are you like this?!"

Applejack glared at her.
"Don't play dumb with me, Rainbow Dash. You know exactly what you've done."

"What?! Hey!" Dash exclaimed as Applejack walked away again. Dash groaned to herself. What on earth is going on with her?

She couldn't dwell on it for long as her watch beeped, telling her that she had to go to football practice for the third time this week now.

* * *

Practice wasn't going so well..

"Dash! Get it together!" Her teammates were yelling. No matter how hard she tried to focus, she just couldn't seem to get the ball into the goal. It always either flew right over it or rolled next to it.

But she couldn't fail now. They had an important game soon. A very important one. It was against Crystal Prep.

The stress was becoming too much. They had two class tests every week now. Training every day. And when Dash was at school or at home - it was no difference. She has no friends anymore. She couldn't talk to someone, chat with them or simply call them.

Because for some reason, all her friends had split apart and weren't talking to each other anymore. They all just befriended their separate tables - Rarity with the fashion classes, Applejack with the cooking clubs, Fluttershy with the Eco kids, and Pinkie.. she just hangs out with pretty much everyone that bumps into her.

And Dash? Dash didn't even sit with the sports anymore. In fact, she didn't even go to the cafeteria anymore. She always brought her lunch and either ate it in one of the bathrooms or outside.

Anywhere was better than having to see her ex-friends have fun and be happy without her.

But she didn't have time to be sad about it. Really, her life became a mixture of training, studying, behaving; and most of all a lot of stress.

And then there was this weird cough.

At first she only thought it was some kind of a cold. After a week with no fever or other symptoms but the cough she doubted that theory. But it wasn't the top priority at that time.
She had to just suck it up and train for their game. After all, they had a winning streak of all the games since she joined the team - which made her the team captain after the first win against Crystal Prep.

Right now they had another training session. Dash got more focused, having almost gotten over the loss of her friends and sucking up the hate she had for them and herself.

Of course she's been hiding her suspicious cough from her team mates. If they knew something was up they wouldn't let her play and then all their hard work would have been for nothing if they lost.

But of course the simple cough wasn't the end of it. She was also getting trouble breathing lately. It felt like someone put a huge, tight elastic band around her entire chest.

Two weeks later they had winter holidays and to her dismay, Dash got sick. And not light either. When her parents caught her as she was on the verge of collapsing from high fever and got her to the hospital, they told her she had gotten pneumonia. Probably from training so hard and so long in the cold air. She had absolute bed rest, gotten IVs and lots of tea and medicine.

Luckily she got released before school started again. (I know that most cases last around a month but google said from 2 weeks until 6 months is shortest to longest so.. deal with it xD)

But she soon had to find out that with the infection healed, it wasn't the end.
In fact: it only got worse. Dash now had times where it was late at night, that she would have horrible coughing attacks that her parents went into her room to check on her. It was scary.

What she didn't know was that her many worries and thoughts about the future were what was causing the attacks.

It went on like this for the next two months until the game.
The game they had worked and trained so hard for.
The game that would continue their winning streak.
The game where Dash wouldn't have her friends cheering her on.

The game that would end her up at the hospital, getting diagnosed with the lifelong condition that would change her life forever...

* * *

*WHISTLE*

The game was on.

Dash's team was quick to make the first goal, which seemed to really wake up the other team. In only ten minutes, the Crystal Prep team managed to get 2 goals passed Thunderlane's watch.

The pressure was on.

Realization that the possibility of losing wasn't even so unreal tightened her chest.

Thinking nothing of it she just continued playing, trying twice as hard now.

It only spiraled down from there.

Five minutes later Dash was beginning to feel dizzy and disorientated. She was stumbling over her own feet. Couldn't pass the ball to her team mates correctly.

The more she messed up, the more panicked she got.

"And that's another goal for Crystal Prep Academy!" Cadence announced.

That was it. Her vision went black.

She tried to breathe as deeply as possible but ended up passed out on the grass.

"A player is down!! Get a medic!!!"

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Dash woke from a nasty beeping sound and found herself in a hospital bed. Looking around she noticed a few things: she was connected to a heart monitor and an IV, she had a breathing mask over most of her face and the concerned faces of her parents were staring at her.

"Honey... how are you feeling?" Her mother asked gently, giving her a warm smile that carried a lot of mental pain. She must have gotten a call that said her daughter is in the hospital or something, she thought.

Since she figured that she wouldn't be able to talk, she just shrugged her shoulders.

Seconds later there was a knock on the door and a doctor came in.

"I have some bad news, and some good news. The good news is that she doesn't have a concussion from the fall, only minor bruises. The bad news is that she is going to need this." He said as he held up a little plastic can.

It was an inhaler. Dash's eyes widened.

"When the paramedics came to you on the field, they found that you weren't breathing. They've tried CPR but noticed the problem: your airways had closed up completely. They had to get the oxygen mask and give you a special treatment to open your airways again. Say, have you ever seen a doctor about your asthma?"

Dash put off the mask. "I-I have as-sthma? H-How?" She asked in a hoarse voice.

"We are going to do some tests to determine just how severe it is. Your parents have told me that you were under a lot of stress these past few months and had had coughing attacks, is that right?" The doctor asked.

"...yeah.."

"Well it seems that stress is one of the triggers and possibly even the strongest. When you get out of here, you are to have a relaxing-treatment. You need to know a few things and ways to relax and stay calm."

"C-Can it go away?" Dash asked, already shaking.

The doc shook his head sadly.

"You will have to learn to live with it."

Author's Note

Sorry for the wait (a-ducking-gain.)
I've had a bad attack Sunday night and that caused my bronchi to get really inflamed. I'm on a new stronger inhaler plus my normal one and cortisone tablets and staying home for the week so I decided to kick my lazy ass and finally write this chapter.

As always I hope you enjoyed and you're welcome to point out any sort of mistakes!