Lone15 - Dreams

Dreams

The gravel crunches under the tires of your car as you ease it off of the road less traveled and into the good doctor’s driveway. As you get out, your phone buzzes in your pocket. A quick glance at it reveals that you’re wanted at the back entrance this time. After you knock three times, the shitty wooden thing swings open and reveals the aging man who you get your supplies from. He gives you that warm smile. “So Francis, are you ready?”

You jolt awake, crying out into your darkened room. You’ve been having the same dream for months now, every single night. Half of them end in your bladder emptying all over your sheets, so eventually your mom and dad started making you wear some protection to bed. You put a hoof between your legs, feeling to see if there’s any sort of dampness. Not tonight, thank Celestia. With a bit of concentration, your horn flares up and the oil lamp on your nightstand starts to glow. The clock reads 5:47. You yawn, it’s a bit too early for the weekend but you’ve been meaning to get some reading done anyway. Picking up your copy of the latest Daring Do book, you open it to page 53, bookmarked with the jacket…

“Hornet! Pancakes are hot and ready!” Book quickly forgotten, you scamper out of the slightly ajar door and down the stairs, running into your dad. Literally.

“Oof! Maybe you don’t need pancakes after all, squirt.” He teasingly pokes your tummy, which prompts a giggle from you. Your mom is folding up a piece of toast in the morning paper, something she often does when she’s running late to work, which she usually is. “Did you have another nightmare?” You nod, occupying yourself with climbing up to the top of the stool where your acute sense of smell tells you there are pancakes. “Did you have an… incident?” You shake your head, gesturing to the garment with somewhat of a blush. “Good. Well, you too have a fun day. I’ll be back at seven, Chaser wants me to stay a bit longer to sort things out with the weather squadron that caused the strike.” Your dad shakes his head. “That poor mare, I heard she was pregnant too.” You tune out their unnecessarily long conversation and instead focus on holding two utensils at once, still a difficult task for a unicorn as young as you are. Just as you’re starting to get the hang of it, your mom gets a running start and takes off out the door, spearing a sheet of paper on your horn and ruining the telekinesis spell. You groan in frustration.

“Let me help you with that, missy.” Dad picks up the fork and knife and cuts your pancakes into bite-sized bits. “There, now you’ll only have to hold your fork.” You give him a toothy grin, and there’s no conversation for several minutes as the air is filled with the sounds of magic and clattering utensils on your dad’s section of the bar, and slurping and messy chewing on yours. By the time you’re done, there’s surprisingly little syrup on your face. As the bath you’re forced to take after dictates though, surprisingly little is very relative. “So, were you just trying to get mommy off of your case or did you really go all night last night without needing your nighttime pants?” You don’t know why the mention of them so embarrasses you as bedwetting is fairly common among 6-7-year-old foals, but something about it feels off. Talking about it gives you the same funny feeling as your dreams do, like there are pieces missing to a puzzle. “Y-yeah, but that’s not too big of a deal.” Dad rubs your wet mane. “Hey, first time in over a week. I’d say that calls for celebration. Maybe ice cream?” Your face is more red than green at this point. “Y-yeah, just don’t mention why we’re there.” He chuckles. Don’t you worry, I won’t brag too mu-” The kettle begins to whistle. You slump over and your dad groans. “Sorry kiddo, you know what that means. Can you finish up in the bath yourself?” You’re already pretty much clean, so you hop out and start rolling around on the towel positioned directly below the tub. “Can I come with you? Please…” For extra effect, you make yourself look as small as possible and then widen your eyes, looking up at him. “Hornet, you know I’m not allowed to… I mean, imagine the kind of trouble I could get… I could lose my…” You continue to stare at him until he laughs, sighs, and hoists you up onto his back. “You’re gonna have to hold on tight, extreme piggyback ride.” You grab onto his neck.

“What’s with the filly” “She’s mine, refused to stay home.” The doctor sighs. “Just make sure she doesn’t go into the Operating Room.” He gives the grey-coated mare a salute and she snorts. “Come on… what’s her name?” “Green Hornet.” “Come with me Ms. Hornet, I can show you the MRI machine.” “I can’t stay with dad?” “Dad has to work.” You jump as you feel something hard hit your face. Looking down, you realize it’s a bit. “Buy yourself something from the vending machine and stay out of trouble, alright?” You hang your head and nod a bit, following the mare.

“That isn’t how it works.” You look up at the mare, feeling lied to in ways you can’t describe. Through pursed lips, she explains again. “A unicorn technician casts a spell on the pony we’re going to scan. The machine then uses the radial data from core-resonance to construct a three-dimensional model of the pony’s entire body, which can be viewed on the glass over here.” She points to a sheet of glass with several wires hooked up to it. “We then can usually tell what needs to be done to help them feel better.” “Didn’t the ‘M’ used to stand for ‘Magnetic’?” She looks frustrated, but then calms down a bit, looking worried. “I kind of had you painted as a dumb foal in my mind when you first suggested that it didn’t work the way it does, but the first model did use magnets. It ended up killing somepony though, one of the testers went through and had the horn ripped out of his skull from a cosmetic metal ring that was attached to the base. Nopony really knows how well it would’ve worked.” You’re guessing it’s your shocked and slightly nauseated expression that prompts her to pay for your second cookie. Hush money. As you’re biting down, the speaker system overhead crackles to life. “Cold Care, please come to the Operating Room. Cold Care, please come to the Operating Room.” The mare, apparently Cold Care as she never introduced herself, gets up. You follow her because hey, not like there’s anything better to do. You’re directed halfway back across the hospital. Past the closed doors, the darkened rooms with blinking LEDs… what the fuck is an LED? You continue. The door that you were barred from entering earlier hisses open after a cold remark from Cold to the receptionist. You debate staying back. It’s probably best if you do, but your curiosity itches. You want to know more about what could be so urgent that they would call in your dad on his day off and a second (presumed) surgeon. Well, you can’t get in trouble for just peeking.

The operating table is covered in blood and burnt flesh. The mare on it is little more than a lump of charcoal at this point. You’re guessing that she was the lightning victim from a few days ago. Amazingly though, you can see her chest moving, heaving. Beneath it is a perfectly healthy green foal, attached to an umbilical cord that is charred up to the belly-button. It looks at you with piercing green eyes. You black out.

Four Years Go By.

You are ten now. You still have the same dream every night, but you’ve managed to learn to control your bladder while you sleep. You’ve been invited to the birthday party of the filly who you witnessed being born, and, likely partially out of guilt for the fact that he couldn’t save her mother, your father signed you up. Trotting up to the orphanage, you carefully hold the latest and greatest chemistry set that has been wrapped up in a box with bows in your TK. Everything about the filly is strange, so the odd choice of the 4-year-old of the young foal asking for a more complex gift is just icing on the fucking cake. Doesn’t help your nerves that she asked for a certain brand specifically. When you’re directed back to where the other guests are, your worry is replaced by pity. Partially, at least. There are only four other fillies there including the subject of interest, even though there are plenty of adults. The others seem to be actively avoiding her too, making it all even more pitiful. You set your present down on the table with all of the others stacked high and make your way over to her. She gives you that same look she did four years ago and you try your best not to shudder. “You saw me naked! Grab the gift back off of the table.” She giggles in the way a young child would, but it’s all wrong. How could she remember seeing you? What the hell is this filly? “H-heh, yeah. Well, we’re all naked now.” “Nuh-uh. I’m wearing my birfday hat.” She proudly gesticulates to her large, pointy and very colorful party hat. “Huh, that’s… pretty neat. Well, I should be-” “I know why you have nightmares.” Even though the room is full of ponies talking and laughing it up, you suddenly feel very, very alone standing in front of this filly. “H-how could you kn-” “Come with me.” You look around to make sure that your parents are distracted and then grab the gift off of the table. Many of the numbered doors have little crayon drawings on them, though some of them also have stickers from some sort of Horseland metal bands. Horseland? “This is my room. I’ve been perfecting the compound for quite some time now, as well as I could do without a distillation column. The rather expensive chemistry set you no doubt have on your back has the final piece I lack.” You briefly take note of her cutie mark, a test tube in the shape of a question mark with some sort of black liquid bubbling inside. You look back at your own, earned three years ago when you slid off the face of a cliff and came out unscathed. 8 Equestrian coins overlapping into the shape of a question mark, all of them heads up. “We have similar marks.” She nods, ripping off the wrapping paper. “I’ve waited four years for this day, to get it all back. After this, I’ll be able to continue my work.” Something about the way she speaks is also familiar. “I know I owe it all to you in some way. I’m not quite sure how, but it has to do with more than this chemistry set. You lost more, of that I’m sure. I’ll help you get it back.” She gets to work, clipping glass and mixing powders into water. She moves quickly despite the fact that she’s an earth pony, her hooves sticking to the glass like glue. Finally, two drops of fluid are extruded into a watch glass. “Bottoms up.” She sticks out her tongue first and you stick yours out too. If she’s confident it’ll work, well… it could easily kill you, but marks can’t lie.

“Ready.” “Good, then come inside. The pills you’ve been taking have served you well?” You nod. “I came in here a man with little hope of a miracle cure, but your questionable medical credentials have provided it.” “And none of the traditional residue of antidepressants? The tiredness?” “None at all.” He nods, clearly pleased with himself. “What if I told you that instead of taking these daily, I could guarantee you happiness forever?” You chuckle nervously. “Even with the excellent work you’ve done, that sounds too good to be true.” He nods and procures two small green pills. “I’ll take one first, just to show you the faith I have in my product.” After a period of deliberation, you decide the offer is too good to pass up, especially from someone who’s proven his expertise. You take it without water as per his request and then…

Tears soak your fluffy cheeks. “Have the years been happy, Francis?”