An Irregular Visit
B_25
The line to the front desk was long, but Spike waited anyway.
He busied himself looking around, to the ponies flying by and the lab coats floating up. How the wheels of a bed would creak when rolled through a sharp corner, or how it seemed that everypony else was coughing.
His emerald eyes trailed up, almost blinded by the ceiling lights, which had never felt so oppressive before in his life. None of the other ponies in the line seemed to be aware of this fact, merely coughing, simply standing, inching forward whenever space became available.
The brownness of the walls faded in grayness. The light lost its color yet still blinded. The others were unaware of it all, merely just standing, still coughing, moving forward when the space provided. Were it not for the fact they were heading to the same destination, Spike wondered how he had anything in common with these ponies.
Soon, even the ponies themselves became gray, but the drake didn't say anything of the kind. He was next in line.
“Hello? Yes. You!” The pony called out to the drake from the leftmost of the front desk, having made eye contact mil-seconds before he had, creating guilt he would never dare share with her. Spike stepped to before the bureau, momentarily befuddled, as it for some reason towered over him. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?”
“Help?” The word felt so alien, almost like tasting a key with your tongue. Spike jumped up, the winds howling into his ears, as he used his wrists to hang from the counter. The pony behind the desk leaned back an inch, confused, so much as to not notice her desk become wet. “Do you ponies help dragons here?”
“We should....” Her brown eyes scanned him up in town, narrowed, lips stale. “...we do have free healthcare for those living here.” She blinked, focusing more so on his wrists than how he was kneeling down to have them hang from the counter. “Are you okay sir? Do you need help?”
“Help?” Spike raised his claw, patting his chest and shoulders, looking for something that was not there. He then scratched at his neck, and looked back at the pony confused. “I have a card, one that gets me health, but I lost it some time ago.”
“Oh.” The pony leaned into the glass, squinting at whatever was beginning to stream down the dragon's neck. “Usually that's needed to wave all the costs...but what exactly is the issue?”
“Issue?” Spike rose to his full height and stepped back. He pulled the claw from his neck and brought it to his eyes, studying some key feature about it. “There's an issue, but I'm not sure what. Actually, there is no issue; it's all just made up.”
The receptionist sat back in her chair, head still tilted. “If you say so, sir. But, if you wouldn't mind, could I please take a look at your wrists?”
Spike tilted his head as well, shrugging his shoulders, and putting both wrists out for display.
They bled.
The receptionist flew back in her seat. “Sir, what happened to your wrists!”
Spike looked down at them as well, and for the first time, noticed that something was wrong. He wasn't quite sure what was wrong, but someone else thought there was something wrong, so that meant that something was wrong. “I...don't remember.”
The mare picked up a receiver next to her counter, her other hoof spinning a wheel. “Are you Okay?! Do you know how long you've been bleeding?”
Spike squinted at his wrists before letting them fall to his sides. He then simply shook his head. “I didn't even know I was bleeding until you told me. I mean, I had an idea, but there was no idea to confirm it without someone else confirmation.”
Sounds came from the phone, ones he couldn't hear, but assumed that she could. He just stood there, wondering what he should do next, or waiting for whatever would happen next. Should he do something about the bleeding or should someone else do something about the bleeding?
“Sir, sir!” The voice almost sang from behind the glass. “Are you able to sit down? Someone will be here right away.”
“Tell them not to rush.”
“Huh?”
He rose an arm. “Dragon's can bleed longer than ponies can. It's the reason why I'm not worried, so no one else should be concerned about me bleeding either.” Spike wasn't sure if that was a lie or the truth, but it came from his lips, so it meant that's what he thought.
“Sir, does it hurt?”
“Huh?”
“Your wound, does it hurt?”
Without quite knowing why, the drake struck a claw into his right wrist, fidgeting and feeling around as blood gushed outward. He wasn't quite sure why he was doing something like that, but it was something to do, so he did it. “It does...it does hurt...but it doesn't hurt worse than the thing that caused it.”
“What exactly caused your wound?!” She exclaimed, looking as if she were ready to jump out of her seat. “Do you remember now then?!”
“I...don't,” Spike said, almost to himself, blinking. He wondered why he was here, why his wrist was cut, or how he was even a dragon. The other ponies didn't seem to notice that his blood was pooling across the floor, only this one mare, and the moment she chose to stop seeing the blood, it would then stop. “It just this thing, that happens time to time, that I often forget but hate to remember. Isn't that a mouthful?”
“And the weird dreams?”
Spike didn't know what to say.
“Of that train, of that desert site, of that strange underground shopping mall, and that store that has a tall, big, second block.” She stood up on the counter, walking forward, phasing through the glass. “Does it now offer no meaning? It's happened to you, it holds something to you, and that meaning can be increased or decreased by how much you value it. Why does it matter what I think?”
Spike stepped backward while she stepped forward.
“You don't know me; you don't know anyone here.” She looked at the others present, all absent. “They're not really here but there. Surely you have something worth better than this? Something that makes you care not for such trivial reasons.”
“I...don't.”
“Then why not play pretend?” The mare hopped down from the counter, the brown fur of her hoof becoming tainted with red, traveling up along the rest of her body. “You don't have that something, so you play these tiny little games. But misery is upon all who play to petty little games. But you could play pretend, be the fool whose only fooling himself.”
“But...but doesn't that make everything worse?”
“To who?” She said, standing before him now, a red coat mare. “You want to have that something to avoid playing those tiny little games, but if you're playing pretend, then you think you have that something, which means you're no longer playing those little games. Everyone else will know, but you won't care.”
“It feels so wrong though.”
The mare only grinned, looking up at him. “Worse than tainting me with your blood?'
Author's Note
i'm just tired, pls ignore what you read.
my quest to word good will never reach decency
