Chapter 1

Lost

I knew that I was lost.

I thought I might have been sleeping, but I was awake, but I couldn't open my eyes. I struggled with the concept of thinking while being unconscious.

My brain went crazy with anxiety. There was a certain uncomforting aspect; I felt the only explanation is that I was not where I wanted to be. Not where I was supposed to be.

My eyes snapped open with realization that it was possible to do so. I managed to adjust to the dim fluorescent lights that cast across the cold, rusty cell I was in. Where was I? Not that it mattered, really. Who was I? I looked around the quiet room. Even the slightest scuffle across the iron floor made a shocking sound. What am I? Hopefully, I was just like everypony else.

Yes. When I looked at my front arms, they were the same dark purple-grayish arms with hooves at the end. Thank Celestia! My tail was black, as I always had remembered, too. My wings were fine as well.

Though I barely remembered anything. I was lucky to remember my own features, otherwise something was terribly wrong.

Something was still terribly wrong, though, and that was where and who I was. I examined my surroundings to get a bearing on where I might be and, perhaps, some way to escape from the obscure area.

Metal, metal, rusty metal, blood… blood! There was a dead pony lying against the wall, its flaming red mane in an unorganized fashion. Its arms flopped uselessly to the floor. Its back hooves were missing, and still bleeding profusely. I wasn't even sure that it was a red-maned pony anymore.

I slowly approached the dead body; it looked familiar, from the little amount that my brain had recovered. I tilted its head forward precariously.

I could see the pony's brain. I backed away, not daring to yell out, or stand up, for someone could hear me, if there was anyone left in this hellhole. Another thought of the pony's exposed cranium made me pass out on the floor, just before hearing,

"Just in time."

~O~

The familiar sensation of waking up in an unknown environment occurred to me again as I heard a demented voice sift through my ears.

"We are going to make a three inch incision on the jugular," cooed the terrifying pony. "There will be a lot of blood, so I advise you to step back, Forestprep."

"Okay, Meditail…" answered a young stallion's voice. My eyes opened wide and I saw a blue pony with a calm mane and circular glasses approaching my throat with a scalpel.

"NO!" I kicked up with my rear hooves and disarmed the horrible doctor. His scalpel flew through the air and narrowly missed who I assumed was Forestprep, a green stallion with a pencil and paper, but was otherwise a respectable looking pony. What was he doing here?

An intern, of course. He would waste his life away on all of the wrong things, studying under these ponies.

But this was no time for sorrowing. It was time for action. I bounded off of the operating table as quick as I could, which was… not very quick. They had me drugged.

My slow movement speed gave time for the medical pony to retrieve his scalpel and lunge at me again. I quickly parried and knocked the scalpel away from him again, and it spun toward Forestprep once more. The medical pony pinned me to the floor. I could smell blood on his breath. Forestprep picked up the scalpel.

"What should I do, Meditail?" cried Forestprep.

"Kill him, you fool!" shouted the medic. Forestprep readied the scalpel like a throwing knife, holding it behind his shoulder. The pony looked nervously from Meditail to me. I knew I was dead. I saw the movement of Forestprep's hoof and I shut my eyes tight again. Where the hell I was I would never know.

Warm blood drenched my eyelids. I flipped over and wiped away the blood. I saw Meditail, being absolutely still, a scalpel in his forehead. Forestprep had killed Meditail. Had it been an accident?

Forestprep was nowhere to be found. Nevertheless, he had saved my life, and for that I thank him. I noticed a bandage just beneath my ribcage, and I tore it off, replacing it with another bandage that I found in the operation room. I could feel the medical supply counteracting the drug within me. I stuffed more bandages into my fist and thrust the door open.

I would not waste my escape chance for the world.

~O~

It was quiet.

I like quiet, but silence was something I despised. I was in a cold room, and there were no ponies around. Was this some seclusion? Some odd dream, a wild fantasy? It certainly seemed real. My Achilles' heel bled profusely. I could barely move.

"You're next ma'am, goodbye." a voice emanated somewhere down the hallway on the other side of old metal bars. It took me a moment to realize that I was lying in a pool. A red pool.

I needed to escape.

"Ma'am, please get up." said the same voice. I looked up and realized the bars had opened. A black pony with dark shades looked down at me.

"I –I can't move, sir," I protested. "My hoof is broken."

"But of course," the guard pony said. "I'll help you up, then."

I used my handicap to my advantage. As soon as the guard extended his hoof to me, I pulled him down and forced him into my dark, boil red blood pool. He coughed and spluttered. I held him until he passed out, for I knew I could not kill him. I stole his keys and locked him in there, and began crawling down the hallway that looked as rusty and old as my smelly cell, leaving a trail of blood. I held my keys tightly. I can remember my name. Heartstrong. My cutie mark? A heart. Super unexpected, of course, but I still knew some about me. I was happy to realize that I had was escaping, but it pained me to think of other ponies that were imprisoned. My vision was swimming; I was losing a lot of blood. I heard hooves clicking along the ground. I was done for.

To my surprise, the Pegasus pony leapt over me.

~O~

I galloped down the corridor quickly, not hesitating to hop and skip. I was okay. I would be home soon, and this would all be in the past, whatever it was.

I passed by my previous cell. The dead pony I had roomed with had disappeared, even though I was still caked with its blood.

"Help me…" a voice called faintly from behind me. I spun around, almost slipping on something wet.

"Who are you?" I asked, not seeing anypony.

"I'm… um… down here," it answered. I looked down and saw a dark pink pony with a red mane like the one from the cell. Her cutie mark was a heart. Her purple eyes stared into mine.

"I'm Heartstrong…" replied the pony. "Please help… These ponies have captured me. I don't know what they're trying to do, but I'm losing a lot of blood." I had only just noticed she was lying in a pool of it, and it was flowing steadily from her heel, explaining why she couldn't move. I looked from her to the door. My chances of survival were lower if I took her. But my heart got the better of my mind, and I lugged her over my shoulder. The hair from her fiery red mane tickled my face. I sprinted to the door, Heartstrong still on my shoulder.

"What's your name?" asked Heartstrong.

"I…" It was a surprisingly good question. "I don't know."

I fastened my hooves around the door handle. I didn't know who I was, or who this mare was, but we were safe.

Until I realized the door was locked.

"No!" I cried.

"I knocked a guard out and took his set of keys…" Heartstrong cut in. She held out a hoof weakly, and there were five keys on a small keychain. I tried each of them, and on the fourth key, the door opened into the sunlight. Heartstrong's head drooped.

"No, come on, Heartstrong, it's gonna be okay…" I assured her, but I wasn't positive. She had lost so much blood. I wasn't sure why I cared for her so much, I had never known her, I don't think. I ran to the nearest civilization I could find.

~O~

I awoke in a warm stable bed, hay surrounding me. There was a bucket of apples for my eating.

"Heartstrong is awake!" said a pony. I blinked.

"Yeah, I am." The pony that had said my name was an azure pony with an even darker blue mane.

"Hi, Heartstrong." said the blue pony. "I'm Azurefaith, our town's MediPony. I've been nursing you for two days, I'm glad to see you're okay."

"Thank you, Azurefaith," I answered. "I thought I was dead for sure. Good to know there's still a good MediPony or two in Equestria."

"You're welcome." answered Azurefaith. "Somepony wants to visit you, and I daresay you'd remember him." The door opened, and my savior pony strode in.

"Oh my goodness, thank you so much!" I cried out. The pony smiled. I still didn't know his name.

"Before you ask, everypony says that my name is Starbuck." said the Pegasus pony.

"Well, thank you so much, Starbuck!" I said happily. "You saved my life. I don't know how I can repay you."

"Well," said Starbuck. "You were the one who stole the keys from the guard that let us escape."

"But you decided to take me with you instead of leaving me for dead." I said back.

"We've both got things to thank each other for," Starbuck said finally. "But I'm hungry. I'm going to go eat."

"Where are we?" I asked.

"We're on the outskirts of Manehattan, in a Bed and Breakfast Hotel. Here are some pony coins." Starbuck dropped coins with the ancient Princess Celestia into my hoof. "Breakfast is free, though." He chuckled, and then left the room without saying another word.

~O~

LOOK FOR TRUEBOBJOE'S VERSION: HEARTSTRONG'S VIEWPOINT.