My head feels like somepony shattered it into tiny pieces and put them back together in the wrong order. Pain drags me out of the darkness and sets me in a familiar soft bed. As I slowly regain cognitive function, I notice I no longer have a tube in my windpipe. My throat is also drier than an Appeloosan summer day. The room smells clean and sterile, but not unpleasantly so. Hushed voices argue with each other to my right. The heart monitor beeps at me from my left, and very faintly, the hustle and bustle of the hospital can be heard much farther away.
With no small amount of effort, I crack open my eyes. The room from yesterday is gone, and I find myself in a smaller room with a window on the right side instead of the left. It's dark outside, and another potted plant bravely guards the window. There's a counter to my right, lit with a soft light that fills the room with a pleasant, dim glow. Farther down, near the foot of my bed, Rainbow Dash is talking to a unicorn with a stethoscope around his neck.
Rainbow Dash notices me first. She inhales sharply, then nods her head in my direction. The doctor looks towards me with a raised eyebrow. "I did not expect you to recover so soon, my friend."
The doctor trots over to the side of the bed, and starts looking at various readings from the fancy machines I'm plugged into. "Hmmm, everything seems to be stable."
I try to wet my lips, but I can't seem to summon any saliva. I open my mouth to request a drink, only to find a small paper cup already levitating near my lips.
"I take it you're thirsty, hmmm? Here you go, drink up."
I never knew water could taste so good. Mana from heaven dribbles down my parched throat, bringing my vocal chords back to life. After downing the entire cup in one go, I immediately request another. The doctor patiently refills the cup for me, and then again, until I nod my head. "Thanks."
"It's the least I can do. Are you feeling well? We've been trying to wean you off the morphine, but you've still got a cocktail of painkillers in you. I hope they're working."
I try to shift around, only to wince. "It's fine if I don't move."
The doctor nods. "Good, good. Hmmm, well, your vitals are mostly fine, and you've taken the blood transfusion well." He paused, pursing his lips before continuing. "You lost a lot of blood. You'll need to drink lots of fluids and increase your salt intake to recover blood volume, but your blood pressure has mostly recovered. That, however, is not why we're here."
The unicorn looks over at Rainbow Dash, who suddenly decides that floor tiles are fascinating. "Miss Dash, I believe you wanted to personally inform him? Pegasi usually take this better when it comes from a friend."
"But I don't know her," I blurt out, and Rainbow Dash looks up. Her eyes are full of surprise, and pain, and grief. "I'm... sorry?" I add.
"It's not your fault," says the doctor, "your heart stopped on the way to the hospital. The medics spent ten minutes bringing you back to life. You'll have trouble remembering the past three days for a while. I'm sorry to say that the 24 hours before the accident will likely never come back."
Trotting up next to me, Rainbow Dash hangs her forelegs over the bedside barrier again. "Do... do you remember my name?" she asks, hesitant and uncertain. For some reason, this strikes me as uncharacteristic of her, even though we've supposedly never met. Then again, I have no idea how I know her name, either.
"...Rainbow Dash?" I venture.
Instantly, her eyes are filled with relief, but it quickly turns to guilt. "Oh thank Celestia, you do remember. Maybe... maybe you'll remember most of it, eventually." She looks away. "I'm... sorry. I... I don't know what I was thinking, I just—"
"Rainbow Dash," interrupted the doctor, "he doesn't know what you're talking about."
Flinching, Rainbow Dash nodded. "Right, um, maybe I should start from the beginning? I'm sure you have lots of questions."
I do have lots of questions, but as my heart begins to pound against my chest, one in particular stands out from the rest. One that I want answered more than anything else in the world, yet never want to discover. A question I wish I could run away from, but couldn't. I had to know.
"W-why can't I feel my wings?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
Rainbow Dash swallows a lump in her throat, looking over to the unicorn. He nods, his face completely unreadable. She turns back to me, gazing into my eyes. She takes a hoof and places it on my shoulder, before her mouth opens. Then it closes again. Then it opens once more.
"Your wings were amputated."
Well, at least this looks like it will turn out better than the last time I unexpectedly woke up in a hospital. But it's still two times in just over a week. I really need to be more careful.
You have my interest.
The interest has peaked sir.
Personally I always take these 'you' stories with a bit of salt. 'I' have never had wings, so 'I' can't really comprehend the full horror of losing what 'I' never had.
Still, great story! Have a like & Fav!
Drat.
I HAVE A SOLUTION FOR HIM it involves large sticks, string and 2 large pieces of paper
The story is good, I like the writing, the mystery has me engaged, but I have one massive problem here...
Why is it in second person?
Is there a story reason for the second person perspective? It places a barrier between the story and my enjoyment. 'I' am not a pegasi, I have never had wings and I can't really empathize with the horror of losing them. The protagonist's loss is a wonderful idea to explore, but the account needs to show it, and a second person account relies too heavily on the readers experience, a common background of knowledge to convey basic story elements.
I have read very few stories that benefited from second person, it tends to be a gimmick for reader buy in. Cold in Gardez wrote the excellent 'For Whom we are Hungry', a well executed second person story where the perspective helps to highlight how alien the protagonist is. Here I'm not certain what the perspective adds to the story.
The story itself is very good, in first person I would add this to my favourites in a heartbeat. As a second person fic I don't think I will continue reading.
4991496
4991188
This story premise came to me in second person. I haven't written a second person before, so this was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see "gee can I write a second person story like this?"
Apparently the answer is no, since this appears to just be negatively affecting the story. This is what i get for writing something at 3 AM. I hesitate to just change the entire story to first person because that would confuse a lot of people, but I may end up having to do it.
4991626
The barrier to writing an excellent second person story is almost prohibitively high. The only times I have seen it work well are experimental pieces, in general it tends to be used for cheap buy in, YA adventures and pornography overuse this device.
I will promise this, rewritten as first person, you have my favorite and up vote in an instant.
It is not an indictment of your skill as a writer, there is exactly one second person story on this site that truly excels.
4991626
Negatively affected? You got more 'yay' than 'boo' comments
do what you want, not what others want you to do
4991651
4991654
After rewriting it in first person, I think it ends up working better even if it requires a shift in perspective. I've updated the story.
Intriguingly, the result is something I would never write. Apparently I write second person scenes differently than first person scenes.
4991699
Holy crap man, what a difference perspective makes!
This is a much more engaging read, the style works very well to convey the confusion of waking up in a hospital with no memory.
I think the story benefits from the change.
Keep up the good work.
There are two valid uses for second person I'm familiar with, choose your own adventure stories and pregenerated characters for a role-playing game. The latter doesn't even need it, as you can communicate the character with first or third person descriptions.
But for the former, and more common, example, there were good and bad ways to handle it. If the story tells details about "you," then it better be telling you who you are. It's annoying to read in the introduction that "You are looking forward to getting home to your brother, your sister, and your pet hamster," when in fact you have none of these.
In the case of this story, if you're using an amnesia angle, then you can get away with using the "you" to mean a specific pony before you reveal who the "you" is. But I would prefer to use first person in this situation.
I hate the fact you can apparently change something like this from 2nd person to 1st in under 3 hours, but it takes me weeks to write new chapters for anything. How the hell?
Fascinating concept by the by. Do keep it up.
I was about to put a my leg running gag but decided that it was overused
Okay, so it's not Scootaloo...
Ok so I was off by a little bit but I got another guess its her father isnt it. Its either that Sorin which I don't think I would like, or Rumble
10 minutes of no blood to the brain would result in much more brain damage then three days of memory loss. Maybe even total brain death. But what do I know of magical ponies brains?
5000947
You're assuming 10 minutes of lying passively without medical attention. You can recover without lasting damage even after 30 minutes of non-stop CPR. The procedure is essentially about pumping oxygen into your lungs and pumping your blood by depressing your chest.
You are right that 10 minutes of no heart action whatsoever would lead to serious damage. But heart stopping, immediately followed by ten minutes of CPR performed by professionals who do this for a living, would hardly result in damages as serious as described here (although the trauma of the original accident certainly could; also blood loss or other injuries could be a serious factor, as well as errors on the side of the medical crew, like starting CPR late.)
Wow. Either my not watching movie limits my knowledge to all of this medical "common knowledge" or some ponies just love being critiques.
Wow, starting off pitch black I see.
Called it
I'm about to cry.
5165218 critics*
You made it too easy, my friend.
Possibly thunder lane or soarin
... would it make me a weiro if I said I haf expected it to be... uh... another appendage? uring the first chapter D8
Nice chapter mate, holy hell fire.
"But I don't know her," I blurt out, and Rainbow Dash looks up. Her eyes are full of surprise, and pain, and grief. "I'm... sorry?" I add.
-Okay so it looks like longer term amnesia is it. Still not sure how long it will go.
You'll have trouble remembering the past three days for a while. I'm sorry to say that the 24 hours before the accident will likely never come back.
-Hmmm... so our main character has only heard of RD within that time-frame? Still three days shouldn't be terrible to try to explain to our main character. Not as good as actually remembering it though.