Amnesiac
Chapter 1
by: 8thekhip
Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Hasbro, nor any of their characters. This is a work of fiction and is meant to be viewed for entertainment purposes only.
Present:
I awoke strapped to a hospital bed. My body felt strange, and I was in pain. Panicked, I glanced around the room that I was in, though my vision was very limited due to the fact that my head was strapped down. From what I could gather, it was a very plain and sterile-looking room. I heard two pairs of footsteps coming from the other side of the door—probably a couple nurses come to check up on me—and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
Something about the footsteps was off, though. Whoever was coming in was wearing very hard shoes, in fact, it sounded as if they were wearing horse shoes, what with the clopping sound they made. The footsteps came closer to my bed, until they were right up next to me. A blunt object gently nudged me, and I opened my eyes slowly, as if to appear to be just waking up. The shock of what I saw, however, forced my eyes open as wide as saucers.
It was some sort of purple creature. It was quadripedal, and had strange tentacle like appendages for legs. They appeared to be topped off with a hard carapace that seemed almost hoof-like, though it was the same color as the leg itself. Now that I looked slightly closer at it, it actually did appear to be slightly equine. It had a muzzle, though that muzzle was actually much shorter than that of any horse, and it had a large head. This creature was obviously equipped for complex thought, the fact that I was in a hospital with it was enough to see that. Its face was also very emotive, perhaps even more so than a human’s.
The creature said something in a language that I couldn’t understand and began to inspect something on my stomach. As the creature touched it, though obviously trying to be careful, the pain in that area increased tenfold. I gasped in reflex, and tried to form my hand into a fist, but found that I couldn’t. I tried again, and again I failed. I grimaced, puzzled and in pain, and then attributed it to the restraints holding my arms down. The equine saw my reaction and backed off slightly, then spoke again in the odd language and left the room.
A few minutes later another creature appeared, this one wearing a nurse’s uniform. What was stranger, however, was the fact that it had a red cross on its uniform. How did such an obviously alien creature end up displaying a symbol such as the American Red Cross? I sighed, knowing that my questions would have to wait, and then cringed from the pain that the action elicited.
The nurse frowned, true concern reflected in its eyes, then pulled out a needle. It was probably an anesthetic, meant to help him sleep the pain away. Knowing that I wouldn’t have much more time in the realm of the waking I asked a question, knowing that they likely wouldn’t be able to answer.
“Wait…” I grimaced in pain, “What are you?”
The creature merely looked at me strangely, then injected me. “W-wait…” I said as I drifted off to sleep
***
One day ago:
Twilight sat at the edge of the Everfree forest, looking at the effects of poison joke on the local fauna as they passed through this patch, as opposed to what had happened to her and her friends the last time she had encountered the plant. She shuddered involuntarily at the thought of being unable to use her horn properly, just having it sit there, flopping around uselessly, like it was made out of rubber.
Twilight didn’t know very much about the plant’s effects in general, however, she expected that time was a large factor in how potent the ‘curse’ was. For example, when she had woken up the next morning after having been exposed to it, she had still been able to use her magic to lift up her brush and brush her hair. Just a short while after that, though, she had been unable to do much of anything with it.
She was watching the effects it had on animals for a different reason, though. Just the other day she had been going to Zecora’s hut to get some more of her favorite tea, when she noticed a deer walking calmly through the poison joke. She suspected that some species of animal were immune to its effects. Through her experiments today, she would be able to conclude whether or not her suspicion was correct or not. Then again, it could be that the animals simply lacked the intelligence for the poison joke to take effect, seeing as it seemed to examine one’s perception of themselves and, well… play a joke on them.
Suddenly she heard a strange grinding noise followed by an explosion near her location. She stopped her observations and ran to check it out, perhaps somepony needed help. Eventually she found the location that the noise had come from. It wasn’t exactly hard to spot, seeing as at its center lay a large crater with smoke wafting out of it. She peeked inside and gasped at what she saw.
She needed to get to the hospital, and fast.
***
Present:
I awoke quietly; my eyes still closed, and attempted to move my arm. My arm responded, and moved, free of any restraint. I swung my legs out of the bed and made an attempt to stand up, eyes still closed. Said attempt failed horribly. My legs wobbled, and my balance was way off, the end product left me sprawled out on the ground, face down. I sighed and opened my eyes, bringing my arms up to help me lift myself.
Then I noticed something very odd. I was gray. Aside from this, however, I also apparently had the same tentacle-like appendages as the creatures I had seen before. I blinked and sat back in surprise, examining myself. I apparently also had a tail, which was a light gray-blue. I sat there for several moments, pondering this odd turn of events. I mean, the last time something this crazy happened was when I… when I, uh…. And then I came to another realization, one far worse than the former.
I had no clue who I was. I sat back for a long time, horror and panic rising within me as I contemplated this fact.
Sometime later the door opened and the nurse came in, startling me so much that I jumped up to my feet. Only to realize that I , one did not have feet, and two, was no longer bipedal. The result of these two oversights led to me landing face first on the ground. Again.
The nurse seemed to chuckle at this, and said something in that strange tongue of its. Probably commenting on how silly my reaction had been. I merely sighed and rolled over, turning my head to the nurse.
“I don’t think that we speak the same language, and if you understood me I’m sure that you would agree.”
At this the nurse’s face turned to one of confusion, and it cocked its head at me, and spoke what was probably along the lines of, “What did you just say?” in its language.
I crawled back up into the bed and turned to face the nurse, then made as if writing in the air, hoping that the nurse would understand and get me a piece of paper and something to write with. The nurse squinted and tilted its head in thought, then opened its eyes wide in understanding and nodded, then left the room, presumably to go and fetch some paper.
As I sat back and waited I took in more of the room that I was confined to for the time being. There were several posters lining the wall with diagrams of the odd equines’ anatomy, as well as a few paintings of nature to make it look less bare. While the diagrams would have been useful, they were all written in some foreign script. So, finding that the room’s décor was largely useless, I instead turned to look at my own body. I first examined my tentacle-like arms, and found that they were actually less of tentacles, and more of incredibly flexible forelegs. At the end of each leg was what could be described as a hoof. I found it rather unsettling that I had no hands, and knew that plenty of problems would arise from that. I also found that I had the ability to swivel my ears, which I used to occupy my time while waiting for the nurse to return.
Eventually I heard the foot—no, hoofsteps, coming from outside of my door. The nurse walked in with that purple equine from before. The nurse was holding a clipboard with its teeth, a pencil behind its ear. Something else was going on that surprised me quite a bit. Another clipboard was floating next to the purple creature, enveloped in a purple aura. A quill was behaving in a similar fashion. I was able to shrug this off pretty quickly, however, seeing as I had already seen much stranger things than this, though I did raise an eyebrow at the quill, why use a quill if you have pencils? The nurse hands…hoofs me the clipboard, then pulls the pencil out from behind its ear and does the same.
Unsure of how to hold the pencil I simply grasped it between my two hooves and stare at the paper, the nurse raised an eyebrow at the way I hold the pencil, but doesn’t say anything. What should I try and communicate first? Perhaps my amnesia, this was a hospital, so maybe they knew of a way to help me? I thought about how to best represent this, and then began drawing. I first drew a crude picture of a brain, and then filled it in, after that I drew an arrow pointing to another brain, this one left blank. I pointed to myself, then at the drawing.
The nurse seemed confused, but the purple one seemed to understand. It looked at me with pity and said something, then turned to the nurse and said something to it, probably explaining my condition. That was another thing, what were these creatures’ genders? I blushed in embarrassment, and then I drew both the male and female symbols and pointed at them, then back to the two others. The nurse merely raised an eyebrow, and the purple one blushed slightly. The nurse pointed a hoof at the female symbol. The purple one nodded to imply that she was female as well.
I breathed a sigh of relief, glad that I had gotten such basic information down without it being overly awkward. Hopefully explaining my amnesia first had helped dampen their incredulity, though I have never heard of any case of amnesia in which one forgets something as basic as genders. I shook my head and decided to think of something else to tell them. Perhaps they knew what humans were.
I drew a stickman and pointed to it. Both of the equines looked confused and shook their heads, clearly not understanding what I meant. I sighed and began to draw a more detailed depiction of a human, though it soon became very apparent that I wasn’t a very good artist, seeing as I had to erase almost every line I drew at least five times. When it was good enough that it wasn’t atrocious anymore I showed it to them and spoke.
“Human.” I said it slowly, so that they could understand it.
They both shook their heads, though the purple one made an attempt to repeat what I had said, equally slowly, stumbling over what I thought of as a simple word. “Whomane.”
I shook my head patiently and repeated what I had said. “Human”
“Whomen?” she tried again.
“Human” I said shaking my head and pointing at the picture.
“Hu…man?” I nodded my head and pointed to the picture again.
“Human.” She said again, almost perfectly, though with a strange accent.
I nodded vigorously, pointed to the picture, then to myself. “Human.”
At this the purple one frowned and shook her head, then pointed at me and spoke. “Pony.”
I froze and blinked. She had said it in perfect English. I pointed to myself and spoke again. “Pony?”
The purple one nodded at this and wrote on her clipboard, something that she had been doing since we started.
Suddenly I had an idea. If the word pony was the same, or at least similar, then perhaps other words would be the same way. I began hastily reconstructing the alphabet and pointed to each letter in turn, saying which letter it was.
The purple one nodded in recognition and began to take vigorously take notes, then she turned her clipboard to me and showed me what I assumed to be her own alphabet.
I smiled, and began taking a few notes of my own, maybe I could get an idea about what was happening after all.
***
Yesterday:
Twilight attempted to levitate the gray pony within the crater, but found that her magic was somehow slipping around him. Failing that, she ran inside the crater and pushed him out of it and made it to a point where the crater was not as obviously visible. Twilight knew that the pony needed medical attention more quickly than she could get him to Ponyville. Frantic, she gathered her magic and teleported back into Ponyville. She soon found Applejack and Rainbow dash, who helped her carry the body quickly and safely to the hospital, where nurse Redheart took it, saying that she would get the story out of them once she had seen to him.
As Twilight watched the white coated mare push the gray stallion into the hospital she heard a voice pipe up beside her.
“Why couldn’t you have just levitated him with your magic, anyways?”
Twilight sighed, “I don’t know, Rainbow Dash, my magic just seemed to…slip around him, as if he weren’t actually subject to the inherent magical shield that covers our entire universe.”
Rainbow Dash blinked, then spoke, “Twilight, are you sure that you didn’t just…I don’t know, slip up. No pun intended.”
Twilight frowned and shook her head, “Not to sound like I’m bragging or anything, but levitation is one of the simplest spells that a unicorn can do, the probability of me failing is incredibly slim, and even if I had, my magic would have simply been released in an uncontrolled burst, rather than slipping around his body and fading into the air.”
Applejack spoke for the first time, “How in the hay did he even get here in the first place, Twi? You haven’t told us anything about how you found him.”
Twilight paused and looked into the air, recalling what had happened earlier that day, “It was the strangest thing, I heard a strange noise — a sort of grinding— followed by an explosion. When I got to where the sound was coming from I found him lying in a smoking crater.”
“A…crater, but…how…what?” Rainbow Dash stumbled over her words.
“Could we see this crater, Twi?” Applejack implored.
“I don’t see why not.” Responded the aforementioned purple pony.
After a time they reached the place where the crater was, the smoke was gone, but the crater was still there.
“Well ah’ll be….” Muttered Applejack as she stared at the crater, which was large enough to fit one of Ponyville’s houses inside.
Rainbow dash swooped into the crater and flew around. “This crater seems awfully clean cut for something caused by an impact or explosion, doesn’t it?"
Twilight inspected the crater closely for the first time, and noticed that the crater was indeed unnaturally smooth. She stopped and pondered at what could have done such a thing. “I think that I’m going to go check on the stallion who was in here this afternoon.”
“Well ah’ve gotta go back to the farm anyhow, see ya’ll. Twi, could you keep me posted?”
“Sure.”
“Yeah, I’d like to know what’s happening with this guy too, but I’ve got, uh, stuff to do.”
Twilight rolled her eyes slightly, knowing that Rainbow Dash’s ‘stuff’ probably meant napping.
That evening Twilight returned to the hospital and asked if she could see the patient. Soon she was inside the patient’s room, with nurse Redheart waiting just outside the door, in case she was needed.
Twilight stepped forward, noting that the pony was strapped onto his bed, and as she did so the pony opened his eyes, slowly at first, then wide and shocked.
She then noticed a patch of burned flesh on the stallion’s skin, though oddly enough, none of the fur looked like it had been the slightest bit singed.
“I’m just going to inspect your wound, sir, sorry.”
She reached forward and tentatively touched at the wound, attempting to brush some of the hair aside to get a better look at it.
Immediately he gasped in pain, and his hoof twitched, then twitched again.
Twilight stepped back, surprised and guilty that she had hurt him. She then stepped back out behind the door and got nurse Redheart’s attention.
“Why is he restrained?” She asked.
“A little after we put him in his room he started yelling and attacking the other nurses, Coldheart’s got a bruise on her left shoulder now.” responded the white coated nurse.
“Wait, you said he was yelling, what was he saying?”
“I don’t have the slightest clue, it was all gibberish to me, he wasn’t exactly lucid at the time.”
“Well, I might as well be going, but may I come back in tomorrow to check up on him again?”
“Of course you can.” Nurse Redheart said.
“Oh, and there’s one more thing.” Twilight added.
“Yes?”
“Do you know what could have caused that burn? The one on his stomache?”
“I can't imagine what could have caused it, it does baffle me rather thoroughly, the hair surrounding the wound is completely unaffected.”
“Well, anyway, see you tomorrow.”
“Bye Twilight.”
And with that, Twilight left the hospital, knowing that she would have trouble sleeping tonight due to unanswered questions.
Sure enough, Twilight awoke in the morning to find that she had gotten around two hours of sleep. Figures.
After going through her daily morning routine, greeting Spike, and eating a delicious breakfast composed of pancakes, she was headed out the door. Pancakes had been just the thing to get her into a better mood, sometimes she thought that Spike was psychic or something, not that such a thing was possible.
She headed out the door and trotted down the road to where the hospital was. When she arrived she greeted nurse Redheart.
“So how is he?” She asked.
“He appears to be lucid, though he’s still speaking in that strange gibberish. He wanted me to get him a clipboard. I think.”
“Do you think that it could actually be a language?”
“I don’t know what language it could be, most of the world speaks equestrian now, and it’s been that way for centuries now, so why would he speak another language?”
“I don’t know.”
Nurse Redheart shook her head and grabbed a clipboard from a nearby shelf. Then she directed Twilight to the stallion’s room. Before she entered she pulled out her clipboard and quill intending to document the stallion’s behavior.
When they came in, the first thing that Twilight noticed was that he was no longer bound to his bed. Nurse Redheart trotted up and hoofed the stallion the clipboard. He took it from her grasp with both hooves and set it on the bed in front of him, then he grasped the pencil she gave him the same way and stared at the paper, obviously thinking of something to draw.
Eventually he drew a deformed blob that appeared to be made up of many different noodles, a brain, perhaps? She redrew it on her clipboard and added notations.
The stallion then filled the brain in with his pencil, then drew an arrow pointing to another brain, which he left blank. He pointed to himself, then the drawing.
Nurse Redheart was obviously confused by this, but Twilight thought she understood what he meant. He had amnesia.
“I’m sorry.” She said, then turned to nurse Redheart, “I think that he has amnesia, it would definitely explain his reactions yesterday.”
The stallion nodded with satisfaction, then blushed slightly beneath his coat and drew the gender symbols, he pointed to the picture, then to the nurse and herself. While the nurse raised an eyebrow, she blushed. The nurse pointed at the female symbol and Twilight nodded in confirmation.
The stallion gave a small sigh, as if relieved to have gotten that out of the way.
Twilight couldn’t help but wonder though, what kind of amnesia could make a pony forget what members of different genders looked like? She took special note of this.
The stallion then drew a strange figure out of lines and a circle. Twilight had no Idea what this was supposed to be, though it was done in the same style as a stickpony. She and the nurse shook their heads.
The stallion sighed and began to draw something else, turning the pencil over to erase quite a few times, he obviously wasn’t much of an artist. He appeared to be drawing some kind of animal, a biped. When it was finished to his liking he pointed at it and spoke.
“Human.” He said, slowly.
They both shook their heads, Twilight attempted to repeat the foreign syllables to the stallion “Whomane.”
He just shook his head and repeated what he had said before.
“Whomen?” she tried again.
“Human.” The stallion said yet again, obviously wanting to make sure that Twilight said it correctly.
“Hu…man?” She said again, trying to get it correct.
The stallion nodded, pointed to the picture, then to himself and repeated it again, “Human.”
Twilight frowned, surely he didn’t think that he was that bipedal creature? She shook her head and pointed to him, then said, “Pony.”
The stallion seemed to tense up for a second, then pointed to himself and repeated what Twilight had said. Then his eyes lit up, an idea had come to him. He began to quickly scribble several squiggles down onto the notepad then held it up to Twilight to see. He pointed at each squiggle in turn, and made noises as he did so. Then Twilight realized what it was, it was an alphabet! The stallion did speak a language besides Equestrian.
She quickly wrote it down, along with the sounds that each letter made, then began to write the equestrian alphabet. Soon he was taking notes of each letter, and Twilight came home satisfied that she had helped in some way. There were still questions left unanswered, such as what this ‘human’ was, but for the moment, she was satisfied.
That night Twilight drifted off into a fitful sleep.