An Overgrown Tumoral Mass
12th Solar Century Schizoid Horse
"Oh that is not good, not good at all."
He opened his eyes. He immediately regretted his decision, as the first and only thing he saw was a blinding ray of pure artificial white light aimed at his face, prompting him to shut his eyelids tight once more.
"Do you think we should transfer him somewhere else?" a second voice asked.
He tried once more to open his eyes, keeping his gaze lower and squinting to avoid being blinded again. To his right, tilting his head as much as whatever was holding it allowed, he could see a vaguely purple shape, what appeared to be wings on her body and a horn on her head. Princess Twilight Sparkle, of course. He chose to ignore the fact that he knew who this random noble was but not who he himself was.
Turning to his left, a white pony. Perhaps a nurse, given her hat thingy. And her cutie mark. Though maybe that was actually meant to be a playing card and he was about to have his organs removed and sold on the black market after getting drugged at a shady casino. He chose to go with the hospital theory. He wasn't exactly sure of what Princess Twilight did in terms of princessing, but her being involved in illegal organ trafficking wouldn't have been good. Though maybe it was legal, he didn't actually remember.
"I'm afraid so," the nurse replied, "We simply don't have the necessary equipment to take care of him here. We'll need to take him to Canterlot."
"Won't the trip there worsen his conditions?" Twilight worriedly asked.
"Maybe, but not more than staying here would. It would take too long to get everything we need in terms of machinery and personnel, some of the best doctors cannot leave Canterlot and even then we'd be in constant need of supplies," the nurse explained. "We need to move him before it gets worse."
Oh, wonderful. What a great great thing to wake up to, discovering that you're in such bad conditions you need to be urgently transferred to the best hospital in the country.
Twilight gulped. "Let's just hope this doesn't devolve into an experiment. I've never seen or read about anything like this, I hope they'll prioritize his safety over research into whatever exactly is afflicting him."
How marvellous. He didn't know his name or who he was, but he knew he was afflicted by some horrible unknown disease that threatened his life and that he might not be cured properly just so ponies could gather information on his condition. That sure made him feel better. Not.
The nurse sighed. "We don't have a choice, sadly." She walked out of his field of vision, and judging by the sound she pressed a button.
Something flowed into his body through the needles he only now realised were implanted in his left front leg. Before he had time to focus on the pain or to scream due to his phobia of needles, the drug kicked in and he passed out.
He opened his eyes, the muted sound of chugging in his ears. A ceiling close above him. Looking to the side, lights and shadows quickly streaking by beyond the curtains covering the windows. A train ride, clearly. His body still held still by something, though too numb to really tell what. Perhaps he could use his magic? He tried to focus on it, but all he achieved after a minute or two was a migraine. He looked around himself again, vision still blurry, and spotted his wings splayed below him. Well, that did explain something at least.
Should have checked that sooner, he thought before falling in his drug-induced sleep once more.
White blinding light once again. A lot of white, actually. Why did hospitals feel the need to be so white anyway?
"His conditions seem stable for now, but we'll have to do some more tests to make sure of it, we don't actually know how far it has progressed yet."
Oh, that was why. To allow nurses to camouflage with the environment and sneak up unseen. Had he not been drugged and his emotions subdued, he would have jumped at that.
"I really hope everything turns out alright."
He registered the way he should have jumped at that again. Okay, maybe it wasn't the white paint-job, he was just dumb. Kind of hard to explain how he'd missed the big purple winged unicorn too otherwise. It would get better once the drugs wore off. Hopefully.
The nurse moved towards Princess Twilight. "Don't beat yourself up over it. You did everything you could."
Twilight sighed.
Did that mean he and the Princess knew each other? Well, that would be cool. Maybe. It was something about his past at least. Maybe they were dati- Yeah no, he couldn't bring himself to entertain a thought that stupid. He had no memory, but he still had standards. Friend of the Princess was enough of an aspiration already for him.
"I know how you feel," the nurse continued, "but you really did do everything as best as you could. It was already an extremely lucky occurrence that he happened to drop like that in front of your castle, think about what would have happened if he'd gone towards the Everfree instead. Of all the ponies who could have found him you were the best one, and if things go wrong it will not have been your fault, got it? Nopony could have done better than you, immediately bringing him back to the hospital. If anyone is to blame it's me for letting him escape."
Well, goodbye dreams of glory. Or hopes of knowing something more about his past. But maybe 'stumbled into the Princess while in a delirious state after escaping a hospital' could still be worth something in terms of fame. He could say he knew Princess Twilight without technically lying, at least. That was sure to get him inside at least some concerts. If he ever got out of there, that was.
Twilight sighed again. "I guess you're right."
The nurse nodded. "We should go for now, leave him to rest."
Twilight glanced back at him for a moment, then looked away and began to walk towards the exit, followed by the other mare. And he was left there. Alone. It was really boring.
Three hours later, according to the clock on the wall, and he could swear the damned thing was purposefully set to be slower than a normal clock, and the door finally opened again. He was rather happy about it. Finally he'd have someone to talk to, with such entertaining topics as the exact number of tiles on each wall in the room. And literally nothing else, that had been the only thing he'd been able to occupy his time with during his permanence there so far, his body completely immobilised still and only now beginning to lose a bit of its numbness. Or maybe he'd ask about who he was and what was happening to him. That seemed like a sensible thing to ask.
A doctor walked in, his coat a dusty muted brown and his short mane shades of grey, a pair of glasses resting on his nose. He wore a white coat, a pen and a couple of other objects poking out from his pocket, and held a folder in his hoof, studying its contents. Closing the door behind himself, he made his way up to the room's only bed and set the folder down on the table to its side, then looked at the patient.
Slightly turning his head, as much as he was allowed to, he looked back at the doctor, and sluggishly greeted him, "Good morning."
The doctor stared for a couple of seconds, his expression frozen, then began to back away slowly. Halfway through the room, he turned around and dashed for the door, galloping away.
Uh. Perhaps 'Good afternoon' would have been more appropriate. Or maybe 'Good evening'? He couldn't really tell. He'd forgotten how to read a clock. Which was probably a really bad sign, but better stay positive, no?
He spent the next two hours trying to extend a hoof towards the folder, something made rather difficult by the snail's pace at which his limbs seemed to move and respond to his commands. It was like moving inside sand. That he knew what moving inside sand was like, but didn't remember how to read a clock, was a rather annoying fact. Then again, maybe he didn't actually know what moving inside sand was like.
Once, during his painfully slow attempt at reaching his only available source of information, another pony poked her head through the door. A unicorn, and a nurse it seemed. Not the same one who'd brought him there, who he was pretty sure hadn't even been a unicorn, but he didn't see much of this one, as she screamed and retracted her head back outside the moment she saw him.
Finally, after an agonizing wait, his leg reached its full extension. Not far enough to reach the folder itself. He remembered the concept of cursing, but not anything in particular he could say that would have fit the situation. With a sigh, he began to curve his torso, equally as slowly, in order to extend his reach.
It went poorly. After twenty minutes, he realised he was losing his balance. Thirty seconds later he was on his side, his hoof still extended but now pointing at the floor, his head and half of his upper body not even resting on the bed any longer.
He wasn't sure how much time he spent like that, as the clock was no longer in sight for him, but eventually he heard the door open anew and hoofsteps coming towards him. "Oh, thank goodness," he sighed, "I was beginning to worry."
He felt the cold metal pierce through his flesh and skin on his neck, and as his senses left him all he could think about was how much he hated needles.
If he'd had a bit for every time he'd woken up in a hospital bed with his eyes being turned to ash by artificially produced white light in the previous twenty-four hours, he'd have had three bits. Which admittedly wasn't a lot, a decent medium-sized ice-cream cone in Manehattan assuming his memory was worth trusting, but it was still weird that... Well, okay, it wasn't actually weird given his conditions, but it was certainly annoying.
And so, once more he was left with only the fragile cover of his eyelids to shield him from the incoming assault of white, the instruments of his torture pointed right at his face as he found his body once again immobilised. He would swap out every light in his house for an oil lamp after that, he swore to himself. Assuming he had a house. Assuming he made it back to it. But it couldn't be that bad, right? He felt rather nice, actually.
"This shouldn't be possible!" a male voice commented outside of his field of vision, "I've never seen anything like this in my whole career."
Was that good? Maybe it was. Maybe it was his recovery that was exceptional. That would explain while they'd all freaked out when he'd began to move in front of them. That was definitely good, yeah.
"Has Princess Twilight been informed?" another stallion asked. "I feel like she should know about this. She was the one who found him, and this development will definitely interest her, even just on an academical level."
"We have already sent a letter to her," a mare replied, "she should be on her way back here right now."
Twilight would definitely be glad to know he was alright, he thought, as the silhouette of a pony's head appeared above his eyes, framed by the stream of light above it and its features indiscernible because of this.
"Poor thing," the pony commented. "I've never even heard of a case this bad, how did it happen?"
Well, maybe they were talking about what he'd been through. That had to be it, right?
"No idea," another replied. "I can't even explain how he seems to still be fine from the outside, and it looks like it's getting worse. It shouldn't even be possible for it to spread this far without evident damage. I'm afraid we should accept that he won't make it, we have no cure for this." He sighed. "At the very least, we should study this case as much as we can. If this is the start of something rather than an isolated case we need to be ready, and either way a case of this magnitude deserves as much attention as we can give it."
So apparently the universe just hated him. The only good news was that he wasn't in pain, so maybe he wouldn't notice? It was kind of hard to actually feel the weight of the whole thing. He was dying, apparently, but he didn't really know of anything he was losing. And for some reason he didn't actually feel like he cared that much about who he'd been. It was strange.
"Sir," a stallion whispered. "What about... the reports of him moving? A-And talking?"
The stallion huffed, clearly annoyed. "Someone must have been holding a syringe the wrong way. I can see him having muscle spasms that would explain the position, but no way he can formulate language in his conditions. The drugs alone should be enough to prevent a healthy pony from being conscious and thinking clearly, it's utterly impossible for someone with so much in their system to talk, and it would be either way considering the state he's in."
Well that wasn't good. Apparently the best doctors in Canterlot were terrible at their job. He should probably tell them, maybe he wasn't even dying in the first place. "Guys?" he said out loud, his mouth still numb and a little sleepy and his resulting sentences somewhat distorted as a result. "I can hear you, you know?"
Sounds of ponies running, mares screaming, and metal objects hitting the floor, along with what sounded awfully similar to the sound of a fainting pony's impact against polished tiles and of glasses cracking. That hadn't gone too well, it seemed.
The pony regained consciousness sometime later, and ran away immediately, while he remained there, still tied to the bed by something which he was only now beginning to feel through his slowly dissipating numbness.
Then, someone else walked into the room. Calm, careful hoofsteps, up to the bed he was tied to. "Don't worry," a male voice said, "I'm here to help you. I'm like you, you know?"
He didn't have time to ask what he meant, for as soon as he'd spoken another needle pierced his skin. He really hated needles. Good news, at least, was that whatever he'd been injected with this time was having the opposite effect compared to the usual, actually waking him up for once. The bad news was that that meant getting to completely feel the needle inside his leg. He hated needles. Had he not been still tied there, he would have been thrashing around in pain, most likely. At last, thankfully, the infernal piece of metal was removed from his body.
He felt his bonds click open, as his mysterious rescuer helped him out of them, and he got to his hooves for the first time since he could remember. Understandably, he almost fell to the floor, and had to take a moment to get over his dizziness. He took the time to observe the other stallion, his body hidden under a purple cape but likely an earth pony given the lack of visible bumps where wings or a horn should have been.
"Don't worry about it," the figure said, noticing his expression, "you'll be fine in a couple of minutes, it's normal." He sighed in relief. "I'm glad I got here to you before they did anything. There are dozens of us out there already, come find us when you get out. Knock twenty-five times on the door to the old abandoned house at the start of Dragon Boulevard, we hide there. Welcome. I'm happy we got another one of us, they always stop the young ones before they are born. Now I really gotta go." And with that, he dashed out of the room and ran away.
He stood there, staring at nothing and wondering what exactly had happened. Oh well. He was free now, at least, feeling his wings for once, and no longer blinded by the technological spawn of Tartarus. Looking around the room, he spotted a desk with some papers on it, hastily left there when the room's inhabitants had suffered what had probably been some form of collective panic attack. He walked towards it on shaky legs, then sat on the chair and grabbed the closest sheet of paper, bringing it to his eyes.
Oh, curses. He really had forgotten how to read. Well, maybe he could find someone outside and- No wait he was just holding the thing upside-down. Sighing in self-directed frustration, he turned the sheet in his hooves and began to scan through its contents.
One after the other, all the sheets and folders lying on the desk were picked up by him, and all left his hooves to fall on the floor.
On shaking hooves, his eyes wide open and uncaringly staring at the void, he walked out of the room.
He walked through corridors, up the stairs, into the hallways, as the few who spotted him preferred to draw back.
It made no sense.
He passed by a window, and stared at the night sky behind it. Staring back, half-seen, his faint reflection, a dark grey coat and a ruffled mane of blueish-grey, and frenzied, piercing eyes of a dark brown-orange, pupils like needle points and irises barely wider.
There had to have been some sort of mistake.
The door to the rooftop opened soundlessly, and he stepped forward. Quietly, he walked to the edge, and there he sat, taking care to wave with a wing to those below before they thought he had any intentions of moving further than that.
Spread all over his body. Completely consumed his limbs. No chance of survival. The body scheduled to be dissected three days later. He'd seen the scans, he'd seen the test results, but it didn't make any sense. He was there. He was walking, and talking, and he was alive. And he shouldn't have been. Not like that, at least. How had they made such a big mistake? Did someone out there try to take him out like that? But to convince so many ponies. It just... It didn't make any sense! He was there!
Hoofsteps behind him. He turned, and Twilight stopped in her path, drawing back with a gasp.
"Twilight..." He got up and took a step towards her. "Twilight," he continued, clinging to what might be his only anchor in the storm threatening to rip apart his sanity. "They say I shouldn't be awake. They're wrong, right? It's a mistake, right? This... I... What's happening, Twilight? I..."
The alicorn brought a wing to her mouth. "Oh goodness," she whispered, in shock and terror. "It spread to his brain."
He stared, and he did not understand.
Bars, cold grey metal, all sides around him, and a ceiling of steel, and a pavement of tiles. Where they had even gotten the thing he would never know.
Screaming around him. Circles rising from the centre of the stage, ponies on the steps.
A new species to preserve. An illness to cure. A subject to study. A pony to save. A life that isn't a life, and another one on the opposite side of the scales. Screaming. So much screaming, and he didn't care. And he couldn't care.
An explosion on the wall. Sizzling metal against the bars, smoke rising in the room. Masked ponies, and guards rushing in behind them. Freedom, forced upon him.
Who was he? Had he existed before? Would he cease to, and had the other done so? Was he the victim or the criminal, or both? What was left, or what had taken hold? Would he ever know?
Was he the pony, or was he the illness? Did it matter at all?
He stepped forward, and stared at the pony on the ground. He stared at the table, and he stepped towards it, and he stared at the tools above it. He saw the blade, and he picked up the blade. And he held up the blade, and he stared at the blade.
And he laughed.
