Chapter 3: The Creeping Walls

Her vision seemed to flickered to light as she tried to move from the paint staining her coat, trying to not slip again. She seemed to felt a deep burning through her front hoof nearly making her fall down in result of both paint and pain. Palette looked back at her wrapped up hoof noticing how painful it was in which made her wince. Finally managing to stand- she slowly staggered over to a phone, thinking at this point she should've went to a hospital. This was just too much, Palette considered she should've went out for help. Picking up the phone shakily trying to balance from her bad hoof she started dialing, until something stopped her as the phone started to pick up. The confused female voice of a pony answered, trying to see if anyone was there. Palette was still not responding back, her eyes stared out at the window seemly realizing something...giving a slow start, she spoke slowly, giving them her address and for them to come there.

Several minutes later, the ambulance arrived and helped Palette to lay down on the soft white cloth as they rolled her out trotting away to the hospital. As she was pulled away from her home Palette Sketch would look around at the other ponies giving concerned looks on their faces, as others moved along to their jobs. She attempted to move her hoof again which would send a shock of pain through her body. At this response the doctors would say. "Please stay still, you're hurt." One of the stallion doctors spoke trotting near her looking at her hoof. Palette couldn't seemed to argue at him, being far too weak to from the shock of pain that shook her body. "It's going to be alright...just keep calm." Palette managed to give a nod which was rather shaky in appearance. Before soon settling down as the pain slowly subsided and she seemed to laid there calmly.

Arriving at the hospital they would stroll her over to one of the empty rooms and left her on the comfy white beds managing to put her back to sleep with sedatives. When the doctor, the stallion from before, managed to do this they turned to her bandaged hoof, and with careful action the doctor started unwrapping it slowly. This- as the bandages were being removed strips at a time they used his free hoof to cover his nostrils from the odor coming from the single hoof. 'Is it infected...?' The doctor thought to himself as he continued, something seemed to make him freeze, and soon grew pale. The bandages were not completely soaked with blood, but seemed to peeled away skin from underneath like it was tissue paper. Everything around the two was dead silent, the pony on the bed winced sharply as the wrappings were removed, but the doctor was the one who shattered this silence with a loud horrified gasp as the magic holding up the bandages quickly dropped them having them fall on the floor with a wet slap. "W..what is that?" The stallion spoke to himself in horror stepping back slowly in complete fear of the unknown. Her hoof, that was laying in an extra sheet to comfort it, was now bare and visible, the fur could be seen poking on the sides of the lay of skin that had been peeled off, showing a hard, cold black shell of something that you expect from a beetle. Palette feeling this seemed to whimper in her sleep, trying to find some comfort. Slowly, the stallion crept closer in caution taking a small surgical knife. Raising it up, he would carefully move away the gory mess, taking a cloth as well to clear it away.

Palette Sketch seemed to started to mumble to herself, her voice seemed to break a little. Tears seemed to form in the pony's shut eyes and dripped down. The doctor gave a confused look at this, was she talking to her sleep? This whole time- she wasn't talking about anything at all before. That's when he realized what was happening, she was waking up. He pressed the button by the bed, having one of the mare's, Nurse Redheart come into the room. "We need to Quarantine her. I don't care what you say, we can't let her go until we figure out exactly what this is and if its contagious." The Stallion spoke sternly, and with that he seemed to made his way out of the room, preparing a stretcher to move her to another room. The Earth pony now laying on the stretcher seemed to shiver...it felt, cold. Even if a blanket would be laid on top of her, so very cold...she thought. There was a long pause as she started to whimper again trying to get warmth. Shuffling under the blanket, her hoof seemed to brush against the fabric causing a small jolt of pain to wake her up. "What...is going on...?"

"She's awake, quickly put her asleep!" The stallion would say suddenly in concern. That was what she made of anyway, looking around, Palette noticed that she was under a light blanket. Trying to sit up she was soon forced back down by a hoof helping her right back on the stretcher. That's when she had spotted her grotesque hoof, veins of green could be seen around the wound where now a shell of black could be seen, in complete shock. She touched this hoof using her other, it was sticky to the touch, until a flashback of the creatures invading the world she had remembered loving so much. She screamed out in terror and tried to fight back the ponies holding her down.

"LET ME GO! I NEED TO STOP THIS! LET ME GO! I DON'T WANT TO END UP AS THEM!"

She cried out in terror. Just outside of the blanket, the doctors seemed to struggle trying to keep her down as the nurse from before came with the sedative. What did she mean by, them? That was what her doctor thought as he helped with keeping her still, and having the needle prick her arm and inject the liquid into her blood stream. Slowly, the panicked cries started to calm down. Palette was trying to fight back the sudden need of sleep. "P-please...let...me g..o..." And soon the body dropped back onto the stretcher, having the sudden alarm of the patient acting up stop, and they would move on. Bringing her to the white room and helped her to one of the beds as she slept, with complete fear on her face.