Chapter 5
I’ve never been a fan of hospitals. But after the day I’d had yesterday, and the... nightmare last night, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are dreadfully horrible places. The machinations of some evil and twisted physician who believed that anypony stupid enough to get sick should suffer even more. Like insult to injury for the truly injured.
Waking up for real this time, I noticed it was rather close to dawn. Close enough that some slightly less reasonable ponies would be up by this hour, but far enough away that the sun had not risen yet.
Sitting awake in a room that just tried to fold me into myself for an hour or two before anypony else even walked past my door was nerve-wracking, to say the least. Eventually, I did notice that I was, in fact, attached to a heart monitor. I assumed it was because I’d shown a propensity to lose consciousness at regular intervals throughout the day lately. So I couldn’t exactly blame them for wanting to make sure I didn’t suddenly develop a predisposition to, you know, stopping breathing.
The next couple of hours dragged on with paranoia-filled slowness. At least, the first thirty minutes did. After that I was just kind of bored. I realized a few minutes after waking up that my heart had been pounding rather hard, so I assume the large surge of adrenaline from my nightmare was doing its damnedest to keep me awake. But once the paranoia and adrenaline wore off, I kind of just lay there boringly conscious. I think it was a combination of having been basically kickstarted first thing in the morning, and a nagging apprehension against falling asleep again.
If this is what my nightmares were going to be like from here on out, I might want to talk to the doctor about sleeping pills.
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The first sign of other ponies even existing in this building came a few hours after I’d brown bored and was actually starting to fall asleep again. The doctor from yesterday poked his muzzle into the room, and, seeing as how I was awake, trotted in to have a few words with me.
“Good morning, Roseluck. Any trouble sleeping?” Tch. Of course he’d ask me that first thing.
“You mean aside from the debilitating nightmares and waking up at O Dark Thirty with enough adrenaline to power a small cart of schoolchildren? Yes,” I said flatly, giving him an unamused look.
He raised an eyebrow and made a few notes. “Well, since you seem to be in such a chipper mood, I’ll spare you the standard questions of what your dreams were about. But given that you seem to be rational, if a bit snarky, you probably won’t need therapy anytime soon.
Don’t count on that, I thought to myself.
“But I will be prescribing something to help you sleep. An herbal remedy developed by a local of ours, a Miss Zecora. I don’t want to throw anything pharmaceutical at you until we’ve done some tests, but getting adequate sleep is rather important. Especially given the results of some of your tests.” He must have seen the look of absolute alarm on my face, because he quickly added, “Oh, no, not like that! It’s just that you came back with some rather high levels of adrenaline, and the tissue in your throat seems a bit damaged. I merely meant to say that taking things easy for now, and letting your voice and your adrenal glands take a break might do you some good.”
I heaved a sigh and felt quite a bit of stress simply fall away. “Good grief, don’t do that. Right, yeah, herbal teas. I can do that,” I agreed. Then I had a thought. “Um, you said Zecora put this together?”
“Mm-hmm,” the doc said absentmindedly, as he filled out some more paperwork on a clipboard in front of him. I could barely see him past the thing.
“Is there any chance I could talk to her? I had some questions about some... abstract subjects I’d... read about recently. I thought about talking to Princess Twilight, but last I saw her she wasn’t exactly in peak condition.
The doc looked up from his board. “And she’s not getting any better, it seems. I haven’t been treating her myself, but she seems to be the worse for wear every day. Her friends are, understandably, fiercely worried about her. But to answer your question, yes. I can certainly see about contacting Zecora for you. Unless of course you’d like to march through the Everfree to see her on your own time.”
Buck that. Buck all of that. “Uh, no thanks. I’d appreciate the referral.”
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A little while after the doctor checked in, they took my blood again, and ran a couple of tests. I ended up leaving with a prescription for that herbal tea and a long, drawn out doctor’s note that basically said “sleep it off”.
Something told me that was the exact opposite of what I should do. So instead, I decided to see if it was possible to visit Miss Sparkle before I headed home again.
Finding the psych ward always seems to be both the easiest and hardest thing to do. You know exactly where it is, but given the nature of the patients, there are only a finite number of ways you can actually get there. You know, aside from being crazy.
I asked around, and was able to get as far as a security checkpoint before a royal guard stopped me. “I’m sorry, miss, but we’re not allowed to permit unauthorized ponies past this point. Just family members, staff, and essential ponies. Do you have a family member in this wing?”
Not having a legitimate excuse, or even a really good fake one, I said, “No. I just wanted to check on the princess. i was there yesterday morning when she... started having issues.”
The stallion looked at me with an expression of sad gratitude. “We appreciate your concern for the princess, and will let her know that you dropped-”
“Roseluck!” said a familiar voice behind the guard. I glanced past him, even as he turned around to see who it was. Applejack came trotting up the hall to meet us, and said to the guard, “It’s ok. We need to have a word with her anyway.”
The officer gave me a wary look, but given that I was apparently getting an escort from one of the Elements, he deemed me worthy to pass. “Just don’t go into the Princess’s room, alright?” he said.
Applejack gave him her assurances that I wouldn’t, and led me to a small waiting room near where a larger crowd of guards, and some of Twilight’s friends, were hanging out. We sat at opposite ends of a table, and Applejack wasted no time getting to the point. “Listen, do you have any idea what’s goin’ on? I know you ran off with Derpy-”
“Ditzy,” I said firmly.
“-right, Ditzy. Sorry. But anyways, you two ran off together after Twilight... well, after yesterday mornin’, and we don’t have any idea what happened. All of us have been tryin’ to talk to Der-Ditzy after the fact, but between her job and her kid and us trying to help Twilight out in our own ways, we haven’t had the time to get a straight answer. Can ya help a mare out, here?” she pleaded.
I gave her a piteous look. “Applejack, the sad truth is I don’t know much more than you do, and I actually sat down and talked with Ditzy about it. I’m still trying to make sense of what’s going on. But there’s a couple things I do know, or have been able to figure out,” I added, after seeing AJ’s crestfallen look. She raised her eyes to me again.
“Yeah?”
“Well, the first thing is that this isn’t Ditzy’s fault. It’s... something else. Buck me if I know what, but that mare isn’t the cause of it. More like a really involved bystander. After that, all I know is that it seems to be... spreading? I guess is the word?” she gave me a confused, and distinctly worried, look. I explained, in general terms, some of the... events of the last couple of days. “They sent me home telling me to sleep it off and drink some tea, but I’m kind of afraid to. I’m going to talk to Zecora later. The doc is going to ask her to come up so I can have a word with her.”
Applejack nodded. “That don’t seem like too awful an idea, to be honest.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say without being redundant or cliche, so I took a second to glance around the room. I traded glances with some of Twilight’s friends in the crowd around her door, and noticed something.
“Hey, where’s Pinkie Pie?”
Applejack shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning. Nopony has. I’m startin’ to think-”
“Excuse me, miss?” said a guard that neither of us had noticed walk up to the table. We both gave a bit of a jump, myself more than AJ, and turned to him.
“What’s up?” Applejack asked.
“Twilight Sparkle has some visitors, and they say they need to speak to everypony,” he explained, and stepped aside so we could see who he was talking about.
“Pinkie Pie!” Applejack yelped in surprise.
“Zecora?!” I asked, rather confused.
The zebra nodded at us, but before she could get a rhyme in edgewise, Pinkie said, it what was probably the calmest voice I’d ever heard her use, “We need to talk.”
Great.
Good, dont die, that would be bad
YES
YOU
ARE
Even when things are going relatively well for Rose, she can't seem to catch much of a break.
What?! I thought it was over! 0_o oh Celestia...
I was really hoping for this too, but that last chapter's ending was so perfect. I still wanted more, but I was somewhat satisfied. I was truly convinced it was real.
This is great. I just read last weekend, and now it updates! ^_^ the same thing happened with me with Admiral Tiger
Claw's story "Arrow 18 Mission Logs".
I can't wait to hear what pinkie has to say!
4320550 quick, get the shovel! He's getting back up!
Not with that attitude.
That fucking summary alone scares the shit outta me no way in hell am I reading this right before bed. But is so alluring. 3spooky5me (I'm sorry I could not resist)
...
So... Derpy is a demon?
SOMEONE DOWNVOTED THIS!
*Falls into despair*
4320895 no. just someone with sight.
great. now all those feelings are more profound. Thanks alot author. no sleep tonight.
and a better note, i at least now know to never look ever.
This is the best kind of horror.
Gonna have to give this a read. Looks pretty interesting.
Hmm, this may fix it....
[youtube=RMINSD7MmT4]
unless it's something else.
ho ree shet....
liked, favorited, and subscibed! ten tenths
Normaly I am not into this horror/psycho/whatever this is classified as stuff but but hot damn, this story dug its claws/tentacles/fangs into me and refuses to let me go.
Do continue please.
4321075
Sight beyond sight.
if I end up having nightmares because of this story, you're GONNA be.
And this goes on my favorites so I can be immediately notified of updates. You, my good sir, have earned my respect.
Heh, a bit of the old lurkers driving everyone mad eh? I'm not sure if I should worry about the uber mage that should have already known about them from her studies or the panic prone flower pony.
Minute 2: Fight has been going well, I've relentlessly beaten those things back. They'll be back, though... Always waiting for an opportunity to strike. In the corners of my eyes.
(This is an awesome fic.)
This is the kind of creepy I like, the kind that keeps the heart beating and the spine tingling.
Why I'm reading this at night is a question that will bother me later as I close the lights and sleep.
4321072 You. Fucking love you. That's exactly what I was doing.
4321444 This story's going all Sword of Omens up in here!
4320859
I don't know why, but imo the description was more scary than the story. I'm kinda viewing this more as an interesting adventure story. The closest comparison I can make is to an episode of Doctor Who.
Actually, the monsters remind me a lot of the Silence.
4321986
Definitely not.
They need to talk, huh?
Probably NOT about sunshine and rainbows.
~Skeeter The Lurker
I like it! A few errors here and there, and I would really recommend dropping the parenthesis in chapter... 2? In chapter two for italics, instead. Also, when the creepy thing is talking to Rose over her shoulder, it's contradicting itself. It keeps telling her to turn around, and this is after Derpy says that they whisper to command ponies to not turn around. That would be fine if it wanted to be seen, despite what Derpy had said. But, it then goes right ahead and screams "Don't look at me".
So, either that spirit thing is crazy, or it can't make up its mind as far as I'm guessing. It didn't really hurt the story much for me, (causeIlikeitsomuchohmaigod) but I had to stop and think about it, and use my suspension of disbelief after I kept on going. Sooo, if it's not just an error in my logic, I would suggest changing the spirit saying "turn around" to "Don't turn around." and "look away." You could also do away with the scratchy shoulder thing from the earlier dialogue playing a part. It isn't really a necessity with Derpy's wandering eye drawing Rose's attention.
Love the story! Super strong narrative that had me smiling simply over home much I liked it at times. I'm genuinely jealous of the way you led the story about, particularly in the Hospital.
4322142 Fancy seeing you here again there Merlos. We gotta stop bumpin into each other like this.
4322570
4322572 *hefts up counter* 24 Times! Xp
I didn't give this a like yet? Do you how do?
I want to read this so bad, but I don't read incomplete stories because then I'll have to wait for the next chapter. So, please, complete this story soon!
4321416 Lovecraftian horror.
It lives!
And for the first time since I began reading this, it hasn't been really late at night.
So I'll sleep okay.
4323158 Indeedy.
I see a lot of fish-men, everywhere I go. I walk around in Insmouth Town, and all I see is fish!
4323230 Eh, I didn't really like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."
I preferred "The Shadow Out of Time."
4323248 Shub Niggurath.
4323282 There's a user named that on this site.
4323300 *facepaws and crawls back into her box*
I know who the culprit is!
peliculasrancias.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/kayako-saeki-1.jpg
~It never forgives. It never forgets.
Nice! I love this and I am with Roseluck. I love horror stories!
F'ing CLIFF HANGER!!!
You ain't dead!
Well, if anyone else in Ponyville [1]would know about mysterious entities which exist just beyond the corner of your eye, it would be Pinkie - heck, she's practically an Eldritch Abomination herself. [2]
[1] Well, there's Discord, who could not doubt cover himself with eyes if he wanted. But I suspect he won't be showing up in this story - unwanted Dei Ex Machina are a pain in the butt for the storyteller.
[2] Did you see the episode where she INFLATES HER HEAD AND FLOATS AWAY when bored? Imagine that happening to a realistically drawn Japanese schoolgirl and you've got a Junji Ito Moment.
4323542 55mins in.......
......Don't look at me.....
T.T That was terrifying. Please don't stop, or I'll get some sleep.
You know what, the whole corner of your eye thing reminds of Doctor Who. Never the less, favorited.
4325322 At what point does the thumbnail happen? With that face?
~The lizardman thinks that would be scarier