Now that my wife is out of the room, can you tell me doctor....how long will she be out?"
"We can't exactly say...she is in a coma after all."
"Silly filly, just had to do your little tricks didn't you...?"
"Do you want some time alone?"
"No, I think I'll leave now...have to comfort the wife you know. See ya Dashie."
..................
"Tell me doctor, how long has it been, I can't remember..."
"Our records say four months."
"Time flies doesn't it?
"It can at times."
"Still doesn't go as fast as she flew though..."
"For all it's worth, I bet your right."
"Thank you doctor....my wife should be in soon to see her."
"The door will always be open when it can."
..................
"Hey Dash, its Twilight again! This I think is my....twentieth visit? Yeah. Sorry the other girls couldn't make it today but things got in the way so it's just you and me! Things have been peaceful for quite awhile now. Thankfully nothing has attacked since you...fell asleep. Oh Dash! We fall miss you so much! It's been four and a half months since you left us knowing your out cold....when will you come back?! Fluttershy is in a heap of sadness knowing you are hurt. Everypony else is the same way. We all miss you...we all want arrogant, bragging,....loyal Dash back....."
"Miss Sparkle, regrettably visiting hours are over..."
"I understand....bye Rainbow! Hope to see you again soon!"
..................
"It's your decision, she's been out for almost a year now."
"Yes, but making a sort of decision like that isn't easy!"
"Dear, calm down, we just need to trot through this slowly...."
"You're.....you're right.....what are the options again doctor?"
"The only other option we have is to pull the plug...you have spent a lot of funds on her survival."
"We want her to live doctor, that is why we pay!"
"Yes, I understand that very well, you are the parents."
"We will continue to pay as well. We will not rest until she is back in our arms!"
.........................
"Hey Dashie, it's mom here....or mummy as you used to call me....You have been out for....a year and a half now? Our funds are very low darling.....we're fighting to give you a chance to live but your brain hasn't pulled its end of the bargain. We...we only have enough funds to keep your heart pumping for another month or so....please wake up baby! I want to see you live your life in the sky, not in this forsaken bed! Please Dash, wake up! Please wake up!"
........................
"No.....mom wait.....no.....I'm awake!"
Rainbow Dash opened her eyes. Where was she? She couldn't remember. Why did her head hurt so much? The light through the windows hurt her eyes badly. She squinted in pain and looked away. When her sight returned, she realized where she was. She was in a hospital. Her location was Room 214, Special Care Wing, but she didn't know that. Dash also noticed that she was in the patient's bed. She became oddly confused. How had she gotten here?
She decided she had to get out of the room. With a loud grunt she managed to sit up straight in the bed. Dash swung her legs out from under the sheets and placed her hind legs on the floor. She then brought her fore legs off the bed to land them on the ground but her hind legs didn't support her weight long enough. She collapsed onto the cold, tile floor. She grunted again and pushed herself into a standing position. A bit wobbly, but she could now stand. Dash moved forward and began to walk slowly. Great, she could move around too.
"Time to go see what's going on here then..."
Rainbow pushed through her room's door into the hallway. Nopony was there. Not a single body was in the hallway. Dash looked down both ends in confusion and shock. This was a hospital right? Where were all the doctors and nurses and stuff?! She had to find somepony in here right? Dash headed down the hallway to medical records to see if she could find something living.
She had found the room or records, but no living things what so ever. Where was everypony? Dash looked at the door in front of her and stumbled through it. Maybe there were answers in there....? Surrounding Rainbow now was a few walls filled with medical files in alphabetical order. Nothing seemed interesting, only the name of certain patients. One name caught her eye though. It was her own.
Dash opened the file and many documents spilled out all over the floor. She sighed and flopped onto the floor as well to view what these documents had to say. The first one she read was just general information. For example, it had her full name on it. Rainbow "Dash" Breaker. Her last name was Breaker because her family line had always been great at cloud breaking, which in turn she was good at. She liked to just go by Rainbow Dash though. The rest is history.
She picked up another document that stated why she was in the hospital. The document stated the she had suffered a severe head injury that resulted in a coma. The head injury was received during "Arial Acrobatics". Sounds like me..... There was a chart for how long she had been out as well. She scrolled down with her curious eyes and found that she had been out for exactly one year and eight months. How was she still alive then?
Another section had a label that said "Visited:", next to it was the word "often". A smaller record was placed below stating that visitors were mostly family and friends. Dash began to smile...and cry. She wasn't the crying sort of character, but this pulled at her heart strings. She cried even more when she say the record that stated her parents had paid for her care for the entire time she had been there. Dash sat where she was and cried for a while longer. Then the question hit her again, where was everypony?
She slowly got back up and trotted out of the records room. She had discovered why she was in the hospital, now to find something living! Dash walked over to the elevators and pressed the button to summon one. This is when she noticed the power was off.
"Great, just great!"
Time for the stairs. Little did Dash know though that she was fourteen floors up. She was about to have a rude awakening. She did have one. Fourteen floors later, a panting, pained Rainbow Dash emerged from the emergency stairwell, annoyed. She perked up when she noticed the entrance in front of her. She trotted fiercely fast to the door and busted through. She was once again blinded by the light outside but her vision came back quicker. The Sun was high in the sky, no clouds in sight. It seemed to have been like that for a while now, the grass was brown everywhere. Where were all the pegasi?
In fact, as she looked out over the hill that the hospital was on, the entire land she could see looked...dead. Nothing seemed to be going on out there. The only sound she could hear was the wind blowing by her cyan face. What happened to everypony? She had to check Ponyville. Her friends couldn't be gone could they?
She sprinted all the way to the town and to her horror, the town was dead too. Nothing moved, only the wind again ans the occasional creaking of wood shutters and doors. Then there it was, Twilight's library, right in front of Rainbow Dash. The door was halfway open and a few of the windows were smashed. It seemed more weather worn than vandalized though. Dash crept forwards towards the door and stopped a few feet away.
"Twilight?" She called desperately.
No answer.
She trotted closer to the door and called again.
No answer.
This time she walked inside the tree house. Her eyes widened when she saw what was inside. Books, hundreds of them, were strewn across the floor. Torn pages everywhere and all the furniture was damaged. Vines hung from the ceiling and roots broke through the floor. The library hadn't been occupied for some time now. This scared Rainbow even more. This...mess....was completely unlike Twilight. What had caused this chaos in the library?
Still with no answers Rainbow left the tree house. She ventured to her other friend's houses and found them in similar states. She knew something had to have happened, Rarity's house would never be kept in such a state. She assumed other buildings were in the same condition but still checked them out of hope, some desperation from within her chest. Every building she entered was overtaken by plants or plainly just trashed on the inside. There was however one building in a good yet weak state.
The Ponyville Inquirer had always been the official newspaper of the town. Strictly a family owned business, the newspaper thrived when it first began, its success continued until what seems to be the very end. The paper's printing building was still standing and seemed to be stable and not destroyed, from the outside at least. Dash knew she would find nopony in there, she just still had hope. Maybe there was something helpful in there, after all, it was a news headquarters.
Dash pushed open the front door. The receptions desk seemed fine....so did the walls and ceiling. What about the back room? She trotted over to a door with "Employees Only" on it and pushed it open. The back room seemed in fine shape as well. The printing presses still seemed operational, too bad the power wasn't on. To Dash though, it looked as if ponies had left there in a hurry. Papers were scattered all over the floor, along with many ink splatters and printing stamps. Dash looked around and of course saw no living thing. Something did catch her eye though, a lonely newspaper in the farthest right corner of the room.
It was dated on a Wednesday that was three weeks ago. It was crumpled and stained, probably due to weather elements reaching the indoor areas. Still, it was a step forward for Dash, it was clearly legible. Many of the articles were pointless to her, they gave no help or information at all. She hadn't noticed that she had picked it up from the backside, she was reading the articles in reverse order. She did finally reach the front page.
The article, scary. The picture, scary. The details, helpful. This was the final issue of the Inquirer and for once the paper actually intrigued Dash. It shed light on the subject of interest, but showed very grave details. The article is as follows:
Citizens Disappearing?
All throughout Equestria, cases of ponies disappearing have become quite frequent and has raised high concern. Loved ones are going missing all over and cries for answers are heard all over. These cries have indeed reached the capital city but our glorious monarchy has not given an answer yet. Its seems our government is a bit confused as well, so it is safe to say we are all on the same page.
Many rumors have surfaced on what may have caused this chaos. Magic happens to be the most spoken rumor, however, I myself cannot claim that this rumor is in fact true. Many a unicorn has received dark glances from any a citizen throughout the land. Good friends of mine have been even beaten senseless over the matter. Violence, my dear readers, is not the answer. Rumors have poisoned the minds of the good and weakened a society that has been weakened already by this hidden force.
To conclude friends, things are not very good at the current time. Things are not safe currently. If at any caost, it should be advised not to go outside as often anymore. Things in Equestria have been hairy before, just never this scary before. The chaos of Discord could never touch this disaster. I hope that the lost can be found and those soon to be lost can be saved
The answer Dash had been looking for was now in her grasp. Only the answer wasn't...complete. A slice of the pie was missing but its whereabouts were unknown. What had caused this event. What had taken Dash's loved ones from her while she was in the dark? Maybe it was magic, maybe it wasn't. Nopony knew even before they all disappeared so how would Dash even find out? It came to her attention that there was some slight scratch marks over by the area where she picked up the paper. It once again was an article of some sort, but only a few words long.
Never enter the caves, never enter the rivers, never enter nature - Toby Babble
The pieces of the puzzle now fit perfectly. As Dash had been on her little adventure, her memory had slowly come back to her, bit by bit. She had remembered some issue about nature being spoken about, but was it before or during her coma? The memory was hazy, like most of her memories during her coma, but it sounded more clear to her. It didn't matter now, she had an idea of what had happened.
About eight months before Dash had come out of the dark there had been issues with nature. These issues were documented by gardeners and farmers everywhere. These concerns became so big that they reached Twilight Sparkle, who set out to conduct experiments and conclude if nature had gone "wrong". Her studies concluded negative, however, she had noticed things that were out of place, but she hadn't bothered. The concerns got bigger and spread wider and eventually brought her back to experimenting. This time, the tests lasted months, consuming four months of her life. She never stopped because she always seemed to get funny or confusing results.
She was the first to go, Twilight Sparkle. She had gone down into a cave fairly close to Ponyville. A small group of press watched her ascend into the cave, but they never saw her come out. Many investigators went down into the cave but found no evidence of disappearance. They didn't even find evidence of Twilight even being there. The cave was completely clean. Concern arose in the countryside and worry broke loose. This did die down after Celestia herself (still heart broken at the loss of Twilight) assured them that nothing strange was going on. She was indeed wrong.
Of the previous details, Rainbow Dash had know idea of them. She only knew that nature had gone wrong, terribly wrong. The balance of it had been knocked off course. All she knew was stay away from nature...a very hard thing being a pegasus. She had to get out into the air, she hadn't used her wings yet, which she realized was strange for her sort of being. Dash decided that she had to leave the building, for her own good pegasus being. She took the nearest exit, which immediately led outside.
Nature had indeed gone wrong, this Dash noticed for the first time. The season was fall, but the leaves had the strangest hue. They were white, for some peculiar reason. This brought some fear to Dash. White leaves? That would never make any sense in fall. Certain specks of grass seemed to be a hue of very light red. Another problem, how had no one noticed this? Maybe it had just started happening. She didn't know though, being in the dark and waking up to this doesn't really help one's ego. Taking in the awkward scenes around her, Dash finally decided that all she could do now was wander.
There was no longer anypony there to comfort her with any sort of company. She had no idea how everypony disappeared either, she only had a hunch. Things hadn't looked so gloomy on Dash for a long time until now. To find another living thing, hopeless....maybe. This is why she decided to wander. She hadn't checked the entirety of the country yet. She was sure, but not completely positive of her being alone. She had to see for herself.
Her journey began from the exit door of the Inquirer's headquarters. She began to fly west (which was very painful for a while) towards what was known as the biggest desert on the planet. She came to many villages and towns on her flight. Everyone she checked with extreme care but still found not a living thing. Eventually her fear indeed was before her. The vast desert was now in front of her, covering most of her vision.
A lonely cloud floated just above this desert. It was this cloud that Dash decided to rest on. She laid down and began to shed tears as she looked on towards the sunset, which was now the 5th she had seen since being awake again. Even though she had only searched the west, she could easily conclude that she was alone, she was "Flying Solo" now. No friends to comfort her, no neighbors to chat to, no strangers to meet for the first time. The land seemed dead, completely dried out. Tears kept streaming down from her cyan face and onto the silvery cloud she lay upon. Her tears and weariness gradually brought her to sleep.
When she awoke the next day, she noticed the cloud had floated away from the desert. In fact, she could see Fillydelphia in the distance, well, far distance. The cloud had taken her to beside a huge and glorious mountain, one that was too steep for any climber to every climb safely. It was quite, but it seemed peaceful. The sun had begun to rise now, its golden head just peaking over the Fillydelphia skyline. The sight was beautiful, and to Dash, it was a bit more special than usual. She was the only one who could see it...or at least she thought so.
"Absolutely beautiful isn't it?"
Dash jumped. Who just spoke words?! She spun around on the cloud until she saw a weary looking alicorn before her. This alicorn was donned in a dress of vines and wore a crown of roots and leaves. Her eyes were as blue as the sky and her body was the most beautiful shade of emerald green. Her mane and tail were a fantastical shade of yellow, her mark was of the planet.
"Who are you?!" Dash exclaimed.
"I represent the balance of nature, being its mother, child. I represent you." Her voice had elements of fatigue in it.
"You are Mother Nature?!"
"Yes, that is what most living things call me. My true name is WillowShine, I am the ruler of life."
"Why do you look so...tired?" asked Dash.
"I am tired because of what you see before you. A world with only a small amount of life left, that being only the plants. I have removed all other life from this planet."
"Why did you do that? Why did you take them?"
"Judgment Day is what you would call it. I call it response to error. You see, the world has gone wrong in its balance. It has come high time for this world to end. I am very sad to see it go, but I cannot cry. My tears, taken by the sadness that consumed me as the planet hurt. I have taken all life except the plants of the planet to a safe place, in a hibernation sort of state, to await a new world. Life would continue from its last ending point and nothing would be known of what has happened in the past few weeks. I am very weak, for I will die along with this planet. It is the only way a new one can be made. A new God of life will come into existence but never be known to the life it rules. For now though, rivers will run dry and trees and plants of all kinds will die. The oceans will sink into the ground and the planet will crumble from within. It has taken me forever to find you, but now I have."
"Why didn't you take me as well?" Dash was now sad, knowing her home would soon be gone.
"I left you so you could learn. I have watched you all your life, one thing had constantly come up. You love being the center of attention. Somepony must always know the name Rainbow Dash Breaker. I left you here so you could learn how it feels to be alone. I do not do it in malice, but out of love. I love all life and will treat all with equality. You needed to learn what being alone felt like. You needed to know that you shouldn't always search for fame. There are great ponies who had lived who never had gained recognition. You, Rainbow Dash, must learn to be humble in your new life. Wouldn't you agree love?"
"I guess so....?"
"I know that you are confused, it is in your nature to be so self-centered. It is important to be humble though, except the consequences of your actions. You have felt the pain this planet feels now, all alone and going to die alone. Being the ruler of life, I am the planet. You have felt my pain, and you should always remember it. Do not be afraid of being alone, it is a natural thing that happens and will happen throughout all generations of life. But for now, come with me to sanctuary, the place of safety, and turn away as this plane along with me dies and a new life for you begins."
"Why does the planet have to die though? Why can't you live on?" asked a still confused Dash.
"My time has been set since the beginning. Before I took Celestia I told her of the world's fate. She understood, now I will tell you. There was a ruler before me, and before them, and before them. I represent the fourth generation of life, or as I call it, the Fourth Life. Soon the Fifth Life will begin, but in order for new life to come into place, old life must go away forever. It is my time and I meet it with open hooves, tears, and fear, but it is my destiny. Rainbow Dash, enjoy sanctuary while you wait. For you it will only be minutes, for me my death will come in days. You will remember the lesson I teach you, but you will forget the mass disappearances forever." Willowshine's horn began to glow and Dash was overtaken by a bright light.
She had reached sanctuary.
....................
"No......mom......I'm awake!"
Rainbow Dash rose violently from the hospital bed. The nurse at the other side of the room stood in shock as Dash was living before her very eyes. She sprinted out screaming "Doctor!" all the way down the hall. A few minutes later, a doctor busted into Dash's room.
"Sup Doc..."
"You're awake?!"
"Yea, but why am I in a Hospital?"
An hour later Dash's parents and friend were at her bedside crying tears of joy as Rainbow Dash was living again! She had come out of the dark and into the light to continue her life.
"How long had I been out?" Dash eventually asked the party.
"One year and four months, we thought you were gone Dashie!"
"Group hug!" Screamed Pinkie.
The group almost crushed Dash but she cried tears of joy with them. She was back, from something, that had put her out for more than a year. Whatever had happened, she didn't care. She was kicking again! She did have the strangest feeling though that something important had happened. The back of her mind kept saying the word "humble". After everypony had left and Dash lay back in her bed (she had to stay one more night) she began to think about the word. All she could remember about it was this terrible pain that she couldn't put her hoof on. All she knew is that from now on she would be less braggy and more humble. This sounded like a good idea to her.
Welcome to the Fifth Life Rainbow Dash.
