The Meeting of the First of Many

I felt like I was flying. It was stupid of me to assume that though because I knew that I was dead. Yet at the same time I felt like I was soaring on the wings of eagles. Was I in heaven? Yes, that was the only explanation. I had died and gone to heaven. As I was contemplating how heaven was going to look like, a sharp stabbing pain went through my left leg and I felt like I was falling slowly but surely. The light was getting dimmer as I fell lower and lower. Soon it wasn’t a lazy fall, but a full out plummet into the dark abyss, which reminded me of the crash that had killed me. I could feel myself hit the ground, yet it was surprisingly soft, like a comfortable mattress. My eyes were soon fighting a losing battle against sleep, and as they surrendered, I became oblivious to the rest of the world.

When I opened my eyes again, the scenery was strikingly different from where I had last been. There were trees everywhere, but not regular oak trees like in Yorkshire. These were thick trees, nearly jungle like with moss thickening on the rough bark. I noticed that I was still in my car, which was imbedded into one of these trees the windshield wasn’t there. It had shattered on impact and small glass shards were littering the dashboard, the passenger seat, and even me. The sun was shining and the small glass shards twinkled ironically with all the destruction. The hood was also pretty well caved in, and by the belch of black smoke rising lazily from it, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fix it. It was a real shame, because this was my dad’s old car, and it reminded me of him. Also medical equipment was strewn al around the cab.

Syringes, surgical equipment, IV bags, salves, tonics, bottles, and powders were strewn about, as if a tornado had passed by to say hello. The stabbing pain brought me back to my right mind, and I looked down. Legs weren’t supposed to be pointing that way were they? As I tried to move my leg the pain returned with a vengeance, and I diagnosed my injury.

Broken leg, I should try to not move the affected area, but I needed to get outside. If I could reach my equipment in the bed, I could fix myself up quickly. I had treated worse in my practice. As I tried to open the door, I felt the seatbelt fasten quickly around my middle. I fumbled to undo the buckle and finally clicked the release button, the belt retracted with lightning speed and I opened the door into the outside. As I slowly slid out of the damaged vehicle, my leg screamed with protest, and I had to lean against the car for support. As I caught my breath, I admired where I was.

The trees formed a small ring around where I was, and my car had plowed straight into one side. A small breeze rustled past me, bringing with it the sweet smell of wildflowers. I regained what strength I had left and shimmied along the wrecked side of the Bronco to the bed. As I pushed the release button, the smaller portion of the bed fell out and I could see my medical equipment piled on one side. I reached over and grabbed some gauze, a syringe, a bottle of anesthesia, and a roll of deep tan bandage.

As I sat on the ground I rolled up my scrubs leg and grabbed my broken leg. I examined the point of impact. It was a compound fracture, and the bone had broken evenly into two pieces, which I could feel as two lumps under my skin. I filled up the syringes to three ccs and jammed the needle into my flesh. As I pushed the plunger home, a numbing sensation came over my entire leg and reduced the pain to only a dull throbbing pain. I removed the needle and grabbed the bandage roll and stuffed it in my mouth. As I grabbed my leg again, and with a jerk, I twisted it 90 degrees to the left. The medicine dulled the pain but didn’t get rid of it entirely. As the bone twisted back into its former position

A yell emanated from my being and was stopped by the roll of tan bandage stuffed into my mouth. A few bits of it did wisp around the bandage and dissipated into the early afternoon air. As the bone slid back into place I looked at my handiwork. The bone had slid back into its original place. I wiggled my toes and felt them move inside my tennis shoes. “Good”, I whispered for my voice was gone, “no nerve damage as can be seen at the moment.” As I finished this, I started to wrap the bandage first around the base of my foot, then the ankle and finally to my upper leg to provide support so the bone would not move anymore. As I finished wrapping my leg, I stood up shaking and placed my injured leg on the unkempt grass. There was only a twinge of discomfort where there had previously been a searing pain. “Medical practice strikes again.” I said to myself with a small chuckle at the end.

I placed the used medical equipment on the open bed of the car and started to walk around the cleared area to see how my leg stood up against my full body weight. I also observed where I was so I could get my full bearings now that my mind was taken off of my leg as I made my second loop around the ring of trees I heard a small rustle coming from the thick trees to my left. I whipped my head to that area but I saw no one. But as I continued watching, the rustle started to get louder. I did not know what the thing approaching me was, but I knew that it could be either good or bad news for me, more badly because I did not know where I was because this place was most definitely not Yorkshire. I needed something to protect myself.

As I hobbled myself back to the car, I stopped and rested for only a few moments. Yet in those moments the sound got louder, sounding like someone or something was crashing through the underbrush. I reached up towards an old 22 caliber rifle mounted on some brackets on the wall of my car. I grabbed the butt of the rifle and tried to yank it down from the mount. But the loading lever disengaged and latched itself on one of the mounts. “Damnitt…” I said to myself and pulled on the weapon with all of my strength. With a screech of tearing metal, the rifle removed itself from the wall of the car, brackets and all.

As I positioned the rifle against my shoulder, I leaned against the bed of the Bronco to give me more support in account for my recently repaired leg. As I lined up the iron sight with the area where the sound was approaching me from, I cocked the loading lever and various ideas of what this thing could be started flashing through my mind like the beats of my racing heart. Was it human or animal, friendly or hostile? I put these thoughts out of my mind as I slowly pulled the trigger towards the approaching thing. The kickback dug the butt of the rife into my shoulder, and one of the brackets into my arm to bring a new round of pain to add to my array of injuries. As the bullet flew from the barrel, it raced into the forest and impacted the thing with a sickening ripping sound of flesh being hit with a supersonic projectile.

Following this sound was one that I for one did not expect to hear, it was a sharp cry of pain, female in tone. “Oh God,” I said to myself, “I just shot someone.” As I threw down my rifle, which was still smoking, on the lush grass, I heard the person I had just shot crash back into the depth of the forest. I hobbled my way to the edge of the clearing where the bullet had entered and plunged into the thick mass of greenery. This part of the forest was different; the sun could not punch its way through the thick canopy of leaves so it was much darker. Also the trees seemed to trap the heat inside their thick overhanging leaves so the air was thick and muggy.

As I tracked the continued crashing through the jungle, my leg kept getting caught on small roots and downed branches, but I was still able to stay close to the person. But after about two minutes of pursuing, the person I was chasing fell with an almighty crash by the sound of breaking branches and tearing vegetation. As I caught up to the subject, all I saw was an indent in the enormous ferns and overgrown plants that occupied this jungle. As I moved the obscuring plants out of the way, I saw something that took my breath away. The thing I had found was most definitely NOT human. It was a medium sized creature about four feet in length and about three feet tall, a shockingly vibrant green an equally green mane, equine in body type, and was wearing some kind of leather armor with a sheath and a sword handle sticking out of the sheath. I stood in awe at the creature before me, until I noticed the deep red blood staining the vegetation underneath the creature’s body. As I slowly and carefully rolled the medium sized horse onto its other side I realized that this was the thing I had shot. A deep groove had been made by the bullet punching through her armor like rice paper and burrowing itself into her meadow green flesh, staining it with fresh red blood. She needed medical attention, and fast or else her own heart was going to slowly kill her with every wave of blood it pumped to that gaping wound.

As I draped the unconscious form onto my back, I gripped the front hooves with my hands and started to walk back to the improvised medical station that was my car. It took me nearly three minutes to find the clearing again in the dense vegetation and in that time, my patient’s blood had soaked through the back of my scrubs and had started to drip down my back. As I reached the Bronco I slowly let down the barely breathing body onto the clearing floor. I cleared all of the loose equipment from the fold out section of the bed and reached for my trench coat. It had dried from the early morning sun, and was even a bit warm. I laid the coat out onto the section and lifted the limp body off the ground and onto the soft fabric. The black sun warmed fabric immediately soaked up the blood from the creature. I left her there and reached back onto the grass for the recently used syringe and the small bottle of anesthesia. As I set medical equipment near the coat, I picked up the syringe and examined it. There was a small amount of blood, about one cc, in the dispenser from its last use, but I ignored that as I stuck the needle into the small glass bottle and started to extract the numbing fluid.

I did not know how much of the medicine I needed for this small creature, so I stopped the syringe well below the normal dosage for a regular horse of this size and stuck the needle into a vein on of her flank and pushed down the plunger. As I watched the clear liquid flow into the bloodstream with my other hand I started to undo the straps that attached the ruined leather armor to the limp form. As I undid the strap under her barrel, the leather garment fell off with a small clunk. As I slid the armor out from under the pony the sheath turned towards the ground and dropped the sword it had been carrying. I ignored the dull thunk of the weapon hitting the ground and focused on the task at hand.

I could see the bullet lodged into the flesh, a shimmer of bronze in a canopy of red muscle. I grabbed a pair of forceps lying in a pile of jumbled equipment and opened the clamps. I clasped the tool around the bullet head and slowly pulled on the handle. The bullet relinquished its grip on the muscle with a sickening squelch and a fresh wave of blood. I discarded the small object and returned to my patient. As I tried to decide what to do next, a small glimmer caught my eye. It was a small light, amber in color, and appeared to be sealing a small vein that was leaking blood before but now had completely stopped.. As I watched, more sparks appeared to be emerging out from under the skin by and under my hand. I panicked and tried to remove my hand, but it appeared to be stuck on the flank as If glue had been applied to my palm. I could only watch as more sparks erupted from my palms and skipped across the meadow green skin like stones across a pond and targeted the wounded area.

The sparks attacked the wounded flesh, and wherever they touched, the wound seemed to heal itself. The sparks seemed to be replicating the lost skin and remaking lost blood. As most of the sparks traveled across the wound, some of them diverted towards the head of the small pony. As they traveled across the forehead they sank between the eyes like small amber torpedoes. As they worked their way into the skin the eyes of the small pony shot open. They were a sapphire blue and were filled with a terror beyond any I had ever seen before.“She can’t be awake.” I said in my mind, “The drugs plus the loss of blood should have kept her under.” But I appeared to have healing sparks flying out from my palms, so what did I know? As I continued watching the eyes started revolving at an abnormal speed and suddenly stopped. Then the small mouth opened and the most horrible scream emanated from the pony. I would have cupped my ears if one of my hands wasn’t glued to the flank. This scream too faded and slowly the small sparks faded away from sight. I tentatively tried to remove from my hand, and this time it obliged and removed itself from the small pony.

I leaned against the bed of the car and examined the area where previously had been a horrible wound. The skin was unbroken, and if I had not extracted the bullet, I would have thought that the injury had been a figment of my imagination. There even wasn’t a scar. I looked at my hand, and there appeared to be nothing special about it. Just the same old hand covered in freckles just like the rest of my body. Suddenly a wall of fatigue erected itself in my brain and I stabilized myself against the side of the car. Why was I so tired? I managed to push the pony farther into the bed of the car and shut the door until another wave of fatigue hit. I could barely keep my eyes open, and the stuff I could see looked like my eyes were covered in flowing water. I made my way to the edge of the clearing and leaned myself against the thick trunk of a tree. I tried to catch my breath but all that I could manage were short shallow breathes. The edges of my blurred vision were slowly fading to black.

My grip loosened on the trunk and I stumbled into the dark canopy. The heat mixed with the darkness made me feel sleepy and I fell on my knees. I slowly lay down further until it hit the ground. My eyes slowly closed until the entire world was solid black.