Rarity turned a page in her book and began reading her next sentence aloud to the pony in the room with her. The hospital was often overrun with ponies, too many injured, and not enough room to hold them all. The storehouse next door was stocked up with extra mattresses and first-aid responders treating the sick and wounded.
Rarity stayed inside with a coma patient, reading to her. She liked helping out in the hospital in any way she could, though she knew nothing about first aid except the very basic things anypony would learn in school.
She continued her reading after the flip of another page, her light blue aura caressing the paper and turning it over. She finished at that page with the end of the chapter. She clapped the book shut and stood up off of her chair. She combed the knots out of her tail quickly before placing the book and the patient's night stand.
"Goodbye, Starlight. I hope you enjoyed the story..."
She turned away sadly and left the room, closing the door behind her. Trotting along down the busy halls, she brushed past the many patients and few doctors left to the confined corridors that happened to be the last space available for them.
She entered another room and closed the door behind her, though barely shutting out the sound of chaos right outside the door.
She turned to see the pony in the bed, and didn't recognize her. She wrapped the patients clip board in her aura and dragged it close to her face. "Hello, Pinkie Pie. I'm Rarity. I'm going to be reading to you for a while until you get better."
The silent pink pony on the bed looked up at Rarity and flicked her long, straight, grey-pink mane out of her eyes. "I'm not going to get better, Rarity. May as well leave me outside and spare the resources on someone else."
"That's not an option, Pinkie. We don't leave patients outside. We take all injured in." Rarity met Pinkies gaze for the first time. She saw the injuries and gasped before she could comprehend what exactly it was that she was seeing.
Pinkie had flesh ripped from her face on the right side, exposing bone and knocked out teeth, fragments in the skull structure, and torn tissues.
"I- I'm going to read for you... It's called The Invisible Mare." Rarity tried taking her gaze away but she found it impossible.
Pinkie Pie looked Rarity in the eye pleadingly. "Or... You could do me a real favor."
The white mare cocked her head curiously. "What is it?" She stepped close to the Pink Pony's bedside.
"Take those vials there," she said, pointing at the counter on the opposite side of the room, "and inject them all into here." Pinkie raised the medical tube connected to her, and pushed it towards Rarity. Rarity looked shocked.
"Are you asking me to kill you?"
Pinkie nodded silently and laid back down against her pillow. "I have no purpose here. Not like I'll ever be able to see clear again, and I'm just a waste of everyone's resources. This hospital only has so many rooms. I heard there's a warehouse full of extra ponies. No rooms to put them in or anything. I'd love for one of them to have this room in my place."
Rarity shook her head. "But they can keep you safe here. They can keep you heal-"
"No, they can't," Pinkie interrupted.
Rarity exited the room, slowly shutting the door behind her. She began walking away when she heard it.
The flat blaring of the monitor in Pinkie's room. Out of her misery, and out of her terrible, mangled body, and into the afterworld.
If she'd ever been found out... May Queen Cadence have mercy on her...