04 - Awakening Softly

It must've been a while before he woke up again. The taste of fresh vomit had long since left his throat, and the world stopped spinning horribly. Instead, he was left with the awful feeling that his life was in somebody else's hands. In his current state, being immobile, always asleep, and unaware made him feel a sense of vulnerability he hadn't ever felt. It was like every moment of being left alone as a child amplified by ten. By the time he picked up on the fact he was awake, he heard a click and the world faded to blackness once more.

He dreamed of many, many things. Sheep hopping over fences, the occasional nightmare, and drug-induced coma dreams. Those were always the worst, as by the time he stopped to really drink in the total chaos, it was already gone. A few times, he even dreamed of a dark blue horse giving him the saddest gaze he'd ever seen an animal give. That was always before the dream collapsed, and he was thrust back into the cycle of repeated falling-awakening over and over.

It was a place between words. Every once and a while, he could hear noises.

Beeping of an unnecessarily loud monitor, the gentle hum of building ventilation, and the clicking of heels on tiled flooring. He even heard voices once.

"You poor thing." They would tell him. "Don't worry, we'll find your parents."

He wasn't worried. He knew his parents cared for him, and after a while, they would come for him. Sit next to him by his bed. It was only a matter of time until he heard his father's voice telling him about his day, his mother reading him- I dunno- a book, or something? Or even his little sister.

He wished he could see his sister again.

He didn't want her to loose another brother.

When in the final stretches of life, one tends to realize their mortality. A deep impending sensation can often be replaced with one of over bearing peace. Whether that's due to animal nature giving the person an easy, care-free way out, or the person would be genuinely content with dying in that moment, he wasn't sure.

But laying deeply into his bed taught him to be content. He told himself, every time he had a moment of consciousness, that if he died now, he would go in peace. If he died in this exact moment, so be it. He didn't leave anything on a bad note. His parents still cared for him, he didn't have any axe-wielding exes coming for him, as far as he knew he had all his taxes done and booked... If he died now, he was okay with it.

He was happy.

...

Until one day, something very peculiar happened.

It was a wake-up like any other. He came-to, the familiar dark hues of the back of his eye-lids lulling him from his sleep. Except this time, he waited... and waited... and waited. Instead of the familiar droll of drugs entering his bloodstream, the click signaling it was his time to go, instead all he got was... consciousness. Was he finally granted the ability to ascend a layer in suffering? Was he not going to die prematurely? If so, he was okay with it.

All at once, like a god-figure flicking on an electric light, he started feeling things again.

An uncomfortable pressure pushed against his back, extending below his pelvis and ending somewhere in the soft, surprisingly comfy bed. The blankets pushed against his chest, warming him to his very core. Despite the warmth below the covers, the room he was in was very cold. It was a nice dichotomy, his ears exposed to frigid fall-like temperatures while everything below was warmer than a summers day. And he wasn't sweating, either.

Nothing hurt, per-se, but everything was sore. His muscles felt fatigued, like he just got done with the pacer test. Simulating an almost lactic-acid build up on every tendon in his body.

Light penetrated through his eyelids, and in a moment of surprise, he grunted and rolled his head to the right. This motion told him a few things. Number one, that he currently had a ventilator hooked up to his face. Number two, the tugging on his left arm told him he had an IV in, so do be careful about quick movements. Number three, he wasn't alone.

All at once, voices started whispering to themselves, deciphering and gossiping.

"She moved!"

"Are the lights too bright?"

"It might've been her sub-conscious. Maybe she isn't actually awake."

That last one was almost insulting. Of course she was awake! Whoever she was.

He grunted again, rolling his head to the left this time.

In a motion, he took a lung-full of fresh air, breathing in the filtered breathing air being supplied via the mask.

Instead, he stopped half-way. Not because something caught him off-guard, but because he couldn't physically breathe in any more air. His lungs became full to bursting, and his chest convulsed for a moment as he tried to suck in more.

This wasn't good. Not good at all.

It was in that moment that he started realizing... things. His hair was too long. The breathing mask was touching parts of his body he didn't even know existed. The spinal-pressure wasn't just pressure on his spine, but he could feel parts of the pressure extending down, like the pressure itself was another limb. His fingers and toes were entirely numb, and his hearing seemed to feel increased in volume and sensitivity.

All of this taken into effect, he started panicking.

His breathing increased as he helplessly tried his hardest to calm down. When it didn't work, he noted his heart rate increasing. His heart felt funny. Different. Lower than where it was supposed to be. That, in turn, made him panic more. The monitor started beeping faster and faster, which made his heart beat faster, which made the monitor beep faster.

It came to a crescendo of pressure building on top of him when tears randomly started streaming down his face.

He didn't know why he was crying. But it sure did feel right.

Click.

"No!" He yelled suddenly, his voice raspy and high from days of not drinking water. He moved his hand back and forth across the covers, signaling that no, he did not want to be drugged again. "No more!" The tears increased in pace as he started openly sobbing, a salty taste developing in the back of his mouth ."No more!" He repeated. In an instant, he began curling up in a ball, his legs clutching to his chest.

But the forced blissfulness of medicine never entered his system. Instead, he cried in a ball.

The clicking wasn't his drugging.

The clicking was the power button for the heart monitor.

The beeping had stopped, and all that was left was his sniffling.

Slowly, he felt himself being hugged. It started as a hand on his forehead, putting pressure onto his head. He liked the feeling. Then, that hand turned into two arms, tightly wrapping themselves around his torso. He didn't fight it, instead opting to wrap his own numb-hands around whoever this was neck. The breathing mask slid off his face and onto his neck as he breathed deep, less fresh air.

No. He knew who this was. This was his mom. Everything from the checking of the temperature, to her warm hug. This was his mom. His mom was hugging him. And it felt right.

With tearful eyes, he budged them open, letting light enter his cornea and subsequently making him squint again.

The room started dark, only the brightest of details making themselves apparent to him. Then, the room became too bright. Finally, his vision returned to normal, and he got a good look at who was hugging him.

A turquoise coat took the majority of his vision. Two, bright yellow eyes stared at him, both of which that seemed impossibly large. What was immediately apparent was the fact it wasn't human. But it's eyes were so expressive, he didn't care. They looked motherly enough, and that was all he needed.

He put his head into the crook of it's neck. The creature only managed to tighten it's grasp on him. He felt okay. He felt good.

"You okay?" It asked. It's voice sounded high, melodic, sweet, and motherly. It made him realize the creature was a female. A girl. A she. Andrew nodded his head slowly, still planted in the crook of her neck where it was comfortable. The creature slowly let him rest back onto the bed, his back hitting the surface of the sheets. Although his head was now back on the pillow, albeit sitting up slightly more than before, when the creature attempted to let go, he held his grip firm on her hoof. Her eyes flickered down, and she understood his position. She opted to keep her hoof there.

Andrew was in a beige hospital room, the walls shining a comforting, if a bit lifeless, egg-yellow paint. Along the brown wood of the trim was pictures engraved directly onto the grain of the wood. Pictures of ponies with horns and wings, dancing and galloping along the trim. To his right, a window shone brilliant white light, warming the room and giving it that faint blue undertone. He turned his head, looking to the sides of the bed. Almost towering above him was probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment. It looked almost like intensive-care, but the room looked anything but intensive.

He turned his head back towards the people at the foot of his bed.

And it was only then he properly digested the absurdity of what he was looking

Two horses were standing at the foot. The one on the right was amber. It wore a quite frankly absurd looking white coat. A horse with a fashion sense. His brown mane was slightly spiky, but styled back into an almost-attempt at a comb over.

The one on the left's coat was creamy. Half it's mane was cobalt, while the other half was a diluted-to-purple looking pink. It's muzzle looked smaller, more round than the one to the right. The right one's eyes were also smaller, and had smaller eye-lashes. Andrew assumed, hoping nobody would get mad at him for mis-gendering, that the horse on the left was a female, and the horse on the right was a male.

Which brings him firmly to the horse that he's currently holding onto.

Her coat is turquoise, with a lighter colored mane.

Her eyes shone the brightest yellow he had ever seen. They were caring, deep, and reminded him distinctly of a relative he cared for.

But while he was staring at her eyes, he made an almost startling revelation.

The fur was too detailed. He could make out every hair in her coat and mane. Her eyes had too much going on in them. White reflections, the cloudy yellow of her eye's pupil... It was all too real.

He soon realized that he probably wasn't hallucinating, and that he was more than likely insane.

But isn't knowing that one is insane makes him no longer insane? No. Not at all. But Andrew didn't know that, and he soon realized the only logical conclusion was that yes: This was real, and it was happening.

Her eyes told him she understood. It was almost like every aspect of these horses were designed to look cute. Her eyes were large. So, so large. Impossibly large, to the point he was sure that their eyes couldn't be balls, therefore there would be no space left for a brain. That was a question for later.

Andrew, while still staring at her, moved his hand up and down her leg, feeling the fur, trying to find a reason why this wasn't real. Some fault in the simulation, the dreamscape, or the matrix. But no. It was flawless. He could feel every fiber. This was real, and it was happening.

"Are you okay now?" She said, her voice barely above a whisper as she leaned in slightly. Her mouth contorted as she spoke... like a normal human's mouth would move. It took him a few moments to realize she was speaking perfect English. A few more moments before he realized she was talking to him. He gaped for a moment, before shutting his trap and nodding dumbly. She smiled. She gave him a smile he had seen a thousand times before on his mother.

"Great." The amber horse spoke, stepping forwards. "Now that's out of the way-" The stallion pulled a clipboard out from his pocket, holding the thing in magic. Andrew didn't really register the fact he was holding it in magic. When everything's absurd, the most absurd things look dull in comparison. It was more of picking his poison of what to react to and what to store away to ask later. "Can you tell me your name?" Yet again, it took Andrew a moment to realize he was being talked to... by a horse.

"Uhh-" He said, yet again unfamiliar with his scratchy, faintly painful dry throat. "It's- what's your name?" He countered. The doctor put his clipboard to the side, smiling sweetly. The cream mare in the corner of the room, who had been silent the whole time, let out a slight giggle at Andrew's response.

"How rude of me, I completely forgot. My name is Doctor Horse. This is-" He stopped talking, realizing the scratchy girlish giggling was coming from his patient as well. "What? What's so funny?" He asked, a smile failing to be concealed by his lips. He nonchalantly brushed a hoof against his name tag, making it more easily visible.

"D-Doctor Horse?" Andrew asked, trying and failing to stifle his painful laughter.

"Yes, I know... quite funny." He admitted. "A pony named Horse. Very clever."

"Pony?" Andrew asked without a chance to think. His laughter abruptly stopped as he stared at the stallion. "You're a pony?"

"Yes... Is- Is that news?" He turned his head to the side, tilting it slightly. Inside Horse's head, alarm bells started ringing off, telling him something was wrong.

"I just thought- I thought you were a horse... sorry." He apologized, looking forlornly at the blankets on the bed. Doctor Horse shook his head, running through the possibilities.

Horses were local to Saddle Arabia. They are distant cousins of Ponies, so they were very different. One of the few similarities being Horses were quadrupeds and had two eyes. Everything else about them were entirely different. Their muzzles were longer, they stood taller, they had eyeballs not eye plates, thinner legs, duller colors, and they had no horns, wings, fangs, cutie-marks, or magic.

The fact his patient managed to misidentify every single one of those traits made the doctor very concerned.

"You thought I was..." Doctor Horse shook his head. "Do you remember your name?" He asked stepping forwards.

"Uh..." Andrew looked down. And just like that, the doctor took that as confirmation of the worst.

"Oh." He said, looking down at his clipboard. "I-I'm so, so sorry. S-Sometimes healing spells can go wrong, I suppose."

"Sweetie..." The pony to his left said, petting his hair. Even the silent cream-pony looked saddened.

Andrew was about to correct them, and that yes, he did remember his name, but his plans soon changed when a flock of hair fell into his vision.

...

That's funny.

He didn't remember his hair being blue.

He also didn't remember it being so long.

No. That wasn't possible. It just wasn't.

He had always been Andrew. He was still Andrew. Since the day he was born, he was born into Andrew. The mare standing to the left of Doctor Horse had pink and dark blue hair. The mare directly to Andrew's left had turquoise hair. If Andrew also had colored hair, and the room was full of ponies...

Andrew looked down at his chest.

It was staring at him in the face the entire time. Blatantly glaring, like it was laughing, trying to get his attention, yet he ignored it. Against all protocol, his brain was forced to look the other direction. Somehow, someway, some higher power forced him to not think about it.

He had a white coat. His chest no longer sat back, but looked slightly extended forwards. Not like a woman's chest, but rather like one of these ponies, sitting down and buffing their chest out by the design of their body. He couldn't feel his fingers. There was a proper good reason for that, too. He didn't have any fingers.

He looked to the mare to his left. This entire time, he had been gripping onto her, whether due to comfort or because he was insane, he didn't know. But by all laws of physics, it was impossible. It was just a hoof. A piece of nail, at least in the human world. Somehow, he was gripping.

And how do you let go?

"Is something wrong?" The mare asked, her head tilting as she observed Andrew. Andrew looked at her for a moment before looking back down at the hoof. His muzzle contorted up, feeling the corners of his lips twitch as he made a confused and slightly concerned expression. "You're kind of holding onto me tight."

"I- I can't let go." He finally said.

"What?" The doctor exclaimed. In an instant, he was by both their sides, muzzle inches away from the interlocking hooves. He sat down, extending both of his hooves to try and peel them apart. Lyra's face contorted into an expression of pain as she gasped at the feeling of hairs being tugged.

"Can you relax?" He asked Andrew.

"I- I'm trying."

"What's wrong with her?" She asked.

Her?

"Her thematic passages are blocked. Her frog can't properly release." He said quickly, observing the connecting tissue. "I can give her some numbing. Her body wont be able to figure out whether it's contracted or not, and it'll instinctively let go." He magic'd over a needle.

Now. Andrew had never been scared of needles before in his life. He had properly understood that when needles were in the equation, it was for the betterment of him. Yes, it was still unnerving. Yes, he wasn't entirely okay with the prospect of a thin piece of metal piercing his skin and injecting him with a foreign liquid, but he was never outright terrified of a needle.

Something in Andrew's brain flipped.

It was like the reasoning part of his brain just shut off as he saw the cap slide off the end, exposing the pointy tip.

He had to distance himself from it. It was pointy, scary, sharp, and pointy. Three of those four words were the same thing. He didn't even realize when he shuffled himself to the other side of the bed, almost hugging his now disproportionate legs to his torso. Lyra wasn't prepared for the sudden change in position, and the hairs being held on tightly by Andrew were suddenly ripped out.

She let out a shrill shriek that was quickly brought under control by herself. The pony looked down at the reddening part of her skin, pink skin exposed beneath. Andrew didn't notice the pain he inflicted, however, as he stared with terrified eyes at the needle.

"Well. That's one way to do it." The doctor said, recapping the needle and floating it away.

"Lyra! Are you alright?" The cream mare said, breaking her vow of silence. She had been leering the entire time, standing idly by in the corner, observing from a distance. When the so called 'Lyra' had been hurt, she seemed to kick into overdrive. Possible siblings?

"Yes, I'm fine." She said, rubbing the sore spot, now having both hooves freed. "Just a few hairs. She's got a death-grip, tell you what." In response, the cream mare shot Andrew a seething gaze. He sheepishly sunk into the covers under her harsh gaze.

"Right." The doctor said, stomping forwards. "We can't keep calling you 'her,' or 'kid,' now can we? We need you a name."

"Why 'Her?" Andrew asked innocently, still recovering from the harsh gaze.

"Her?" The doctor looked momentarily stunned. "Well- It's because you're a she? Did- Did you not know?" Andrew, in response, looked between his legs. The doctor immediately averted his gaze as Lyra and the cream-coated mare stared at the floor awkwardly.

"I'm a she!" Andrew raised his voice. "Oh, god! No, no no!"

"What's wrong?" Lyra asked concernedly as Andrew returned his gaze.

"Nothing!" He corrected quickly. "I'm just- surprised!" He smiled bashfully.

"That's not good." The doctor said, looking stunned. "What else do you not know? Do you know your age?"

"No..."

"Do you know who your parents are?"

"No?" Not in this body, at least.

"Do you know what tribe you are, at least?"

"What's a tribe?"

"Oh, sweet Celestia." The doctor shook his head. "Alright, kid. I'm going to explain Equestria to you in a nutshell. Tell me if anything jogs your memory."

"This is insane."

"You keep saying that!" Lyra exclaimed. The trio had left the hospital room, keeping the mystery filly still under watchful glance from Doctor Horse's position near the closed oak door. "What does it mean?"

"I mean- I've never seen amnesia this bad before." He explained. "I'm no psychologist, but she didn't know what tribe she was! She didn't even know she was a she! I mean- this is advanced amnesia. This is out-of-my-league amnesia. And it complicated things."

"Complicates? How?"

"I mean she's never existed!" He shouted. Bon-bon and Lyra exchanged concerned glances towards each other before looking back at the doctor.

"Huh?"

"That sounded dumb. What I mean to say is- She has no records of existing. Never in Ponyville, Manehattan, Fillydelphia... Never has a filly at her age existed with a white coat, blue and yellow hair, undersized and overdeveloped wings... Nothing! Nadah! And that's even when trying to search for any filly, cutiemark or no. She might've had a cutiemark, honestly, but her amnesia might have taken it away. I have no idea!"

"Well- If she doesn't exist, what's going to happen to her?" Lyra asked. "I feel partially responsible for her. I'm the one who found her, after all."

"She will probably be carted off to the orphanage." Lyra's eyes shot open.

"What? You can't do that!"

"I'm afraid if no family wants to take her in, it'll be the only option." He shrugged.

Slowly, Lyra turned to face Bon-bon.

In under ten seconds, a million words were exchanged behind glazed eyes and a stone-cold expression. Raising eyebrows, nodding or shaking of heads, and the occasional muzzle-scrunch.

"I know a developing family who would love to take her in." Lyra smiled broadly. "And they're standing right here!"

It had been a sunny day.

The sky was shining an unusually brilliant blue. The dandelions had long since turned white and spread it's tendrils along the soft wind. Not a cloud in the sky as the purple flowers bloomed beautifully. On the porch of a normal suburban home sat a woman alone. She had been aging quickly the past few years. Her once brown hair had started devolving into more and more gray streaks. Her husband was following much the same tradition. Whether the passing of their first son, John, had anything to do with the rapid aging remained elusive.

But she sat anxiously on the porch.

The day was familiar. She didn't know why it was familiar, but it wasn't in a good way.

The sun was too bright. The air was too right. She couldn't exactly remember the last time a day had felt like this. And that was not a good thing.

The rumbling of an engine caught her attention. She turned her head, peering just above the neighbors painted brown fence. A black and white police interceptor was traveling slowly down the desolate street.

This was so familiar.

It stopped in front of her house.

Why was this so familiar?

From the drivers seat, a tall and lean man stepped out. He was bald, black sunglasses on top his nose as he observed his environment. He shifted the weight on his belt, keeping one hand on while closing the door. He met the eyes of the woman still sitting on the front porch before giving a polite smile and started walking towards her.

Even that's familiar.

"Hey there." He greeted politely. "Do you happen to know a 'Mary Smith?'" He asked, bobbing his head joyfully as he spoke.

"Oh, I do." She said. "That would happen to be me, officer."

"Ah." He said. His smile vanished as he pulled off his sunglasses, them dangling uselessly to his side as he wore a forlorn expression. "Ma'am, I come regarding your son, Andrew Smith."

"What's he done this time?" She asked, almost relieved at the fact the officer knew where he was. For the past two weeks, he hadn't been responding to any voicemails. Perhaps this officer would finally elaborate on where he had been, how he'd been potentially arrested, and why they won't give him his phone in whatever jail they held him in.

"It- It's not good news." He said, meeting her gaze for only a moment.

"What happened to him?" She asked mechanically.

This is familiar.

"Your son, Andrew Smith, was involved in a car accident, and didn't make it."

"Your son, John Smith, was unfortunately killed in action during a mission in Iraq."