Leftie Loosey hummed as she made her way home from school. It was an inner-city school of Manehattan, and so it never taught her the importance of doing your own research on social media or the power of speaking to managers. As some kind of divine punishment for her ignorance, there happened to be a poorly-painted sign leaning against a dumpster in an alley along her route. It showed an arrow pointing at a rusty door across the alley, and it said "VAXINES" in large, white, dripping letters.
"Seems reasonable," she said, nodding her empty head. She pressed the door open with one hoof and stepped into a dingy little room lit by bulbs as dim as her own, if you know what I mean. The room also had no carpet, reeked of mareijuana, and was decorated with ugly piercings.
A large pony with tattoos and a sidearm scowled at her. "You want vaccine?" he asked. She nodded with a small smile. "Good. Soon, will not be choice. Better to do now." He knocked on a heavy door three times, yelling something in a language Leftie Loosey didn't recognize.
The door creaked open slowly, revealing a dried mushroom of a pony wearing thick glasses and a coffee-stained lab coat. "Hello," the doctor rasped in a voice corroded over time by harsh industrial chemicals. "Come in, come in! Quickly!"
"Okay," the mare said sheepishly. That is, like an actual sheep, not in a shy kind of way. "Sick pad you got here."
"Mm, yes, indeed," the doctor said as he leaned his weight against the heavy door to close it. He slid an iron bar into place, locking it. "Now, please set your things on the table, there."
Leftie Loosey set her bag where he had indicated. It contained many textbooks full of lies and propaganda that had ultimately brought her to this place.
"Sit down, please," the doctor continued. His breath had quickened, as though he were about to sniff a pretty mare's mane.
The chair in the center of the room was some kind of modified hospital bed, bent into a chairlike shape and outfitted with leather straps. Leftie Loosey hoped they were faux leather, for she could not stand the thought of an animal suffering, even if it meant ponies suffering. She was a vegan, by the way.
She lay down on the chair, happy to finally be making her own decisions despite her parents knowing better. Their warnings echoed through the caverns of her mind, but she mentally shrugged them off, because her friends had told her that her parents were "uptight dickwads".
"Ssssooooo," the doctor hissed, "what kinds of vaccines would you like? We offer everything from West Neighl Virus to the Saddle Sores."
"How much do they cost?" she asked. Unfortunately, she had spent most of her money on drugs, so she was broke, despite not paying her rent or giving her parents money she had owed them for years now, but they trusted her every time she said she'd get it to them next month.
"Oh, no, no, no. No charge. This is funded by the Manehattan government!"
"Sweet!" she exclaimed. "Thanks, taxpayers!" Leftie Loosey laughed cruelly at the working ponies that were unknowingly supporting her poor decision. After all, she was a freelance artist, and did not report her income to the ERS, because it was none of their business anyway. She also made below minimum wage, because she refused to get a second job to be able to move out from her parents' house.
As the doctor tightened the straps to hold his patient down, he mumbled a prayer to the nature goddesses that he worshipped, earning a smile from Leftie Loosey. Her parents were strict Celestians, and would not let her worship any false gods. But, false or not, they seemed fun, and she had always wanted to try it, despite their warnings.
"So, I see you're still in school," the doctor said between teeth yellowed and pitted and cracked. "How's that going?"
"Good! Today, we learned about the dangers of clopitalism, and how being fair and balanced is actually evil. My parents told me that they actually used to be able to keep more than ten percent of their wages!"
"Parents?"
Leftie Loosey sighed, and if her head wasn't strapped down, she would have hung it in shame. "Yeah. They're both straight and still married. My friends at school give me a really hard time about it."
"As they should. Have you considered running away from home?"
"My teachers suggested the same thing, but Mom and Dad work really hard for me."
The doctor quirked an eyebrow.
Leftie Loosey quickly continued. "I mean they still have some money I can leech from them until I'm done with school."
The doctor nodded knowingly. "School is very important. You must always listen to your teachers and believe what you read in your science and history textbooks, and don't let your parents tell you any differently." He sucked in a breath of stale air as he tightened a strap and secured it. "Anyway, looks like you're all strapped in."
The young mare could feel hairs on her neck standing up in excitement as the doctor produced a syringe full of bubbling green liquid. It looked like there was some kind of small piece of metal inside it as well.
"Is it true that vaccines are made from aborted foals?" Leftie Loosey asked.
"Yes, but only fresh ones will suffice. So, that's why we mandated that foals in schools are not taught abstinence, so that we can keep a steady supply." He pressed the plunger slightly, forming a droplet at the tip of the needle that immediately sizzled away into a noxious wisp of smoke. "This is going to hurt a lot."
That was fine for Leftie Loosey. She was willing to do anything to go against her parents' wishes. She nodded.
The initial poke into her right foreleg wasn't too bad. Then, as the vile mix of deceased foals, industrial-grade cleaners, rat poison, and radioactive mercury entered her veins, her muscles seized up. A moment of panic came over her, and some part of her wanted to take it all back. To ask him to stop. Step back into the alley and return home to parents who loved her enough to stay together even though they no longer got along with each other. But the idea of how upset they would be reassured her.
The doctor's crooked smile floated above her, and his eyes bugged out with some twisted kind of satisfaction as the toxic cocktail worked its way further into her body. The pain made her grit her teeth and groan. Soon, her entire body was convulsing, pulling at the hopefully-faux-leather straps. White foam bubbled out of her mouth, and she could faintly hear herself making noises that she never knew she could make—some kind of horrifying mix of choking and screaming. Her body tried to curl up into a ball, but the restraints kept her splayed out like a dead frog ready for dissection.
Soon, however, her body calmed down as it accepted its impending death. Muscles relaxed, her lungs expelled air for the final time, and her eye lids slid half-shut, darkening the room to a dreamlike blur.
"How unfortunate," the doctor said, his voice far away and tinny. She could hear him unlock the door and open it. "Clobber! Get in here."
"Yes, doctor?"
"This one's not going to make it. But, eh, this time, mark it down as a success, yeah?"
"But she is dead?" Clobber asked.
"Yes, well, dead ponies can't get sick, right? So, the vaccination still worked."
"Ah, yes, very good."
Their voices became low, and they faded until Leftie Loosey could hear nothing. A few weak beats of her dying heart were all she could feel until it, too, stopped.
In her final moments, she pictured her mom and dad crying. Not for her body, but for her soul, which would not be joining them on the sun with Celestia, but would be condemned to an eternity on the moon.
