Lights… bright lights… and shadows moving through those lights…

“Get her stabilized. Where’s that doctor?”

… My chest, my body… my everything… Everything hurts…

“Where do I put the needle?”

“Did you skip medschool? Stick it- Oh, I see. Just stick it somewhere.”

… Except my face… My face just itches…

“I thought you said it was contained. This is not contained!”

Voices, those voices… What happened? If someone doesn’t scratch my itchy face soon, I’m going to ruin them…

“There’s a mare asking about the griffon. What do I tell her?”

“We already told her the truth, the griffon is dead. Good riddance, can’t she take a hint?”

Griffon? I’m a griffon, I remember that. What else do I remember?

Gilda, my name is Gilda. And I make… potatoes. No, I make muffins. Wait, that’s not it. I… I make milk? Ew, that sounds wrong on every level. All I remember is I make something that smells good.

What’s with my memory? What the heck happened to me?

The world clears up a bit. I can hear things, but I can’t see. My face still itches. I need to get that itch. It’s not pleasant. I try moving my talon to scratch it, but something metal is holding me down. Crap, I’m grounded.

“Patient Zero is still in a comatose state. She shows no signs of deterioration from Blacklight.”

Those voices again, I keep hearing them.

“The patient shows several signs of life, such as breathing, heartbeat, and bleeding, and yet our spells still indicate she is deceased. While other subjects have reanimated into a more… lively state, Patient Zero exhibits none of these behaviors.”

This voice sounds much closer than before. Maybe if he gets close enough, I can beat some answers out of him, make him tell me what’s going on here.

“Doctor, you’ve been poking and prodding her for long enough. I don’t think you’re going to get anymore results.”

“Oh contraire, science is all about observation. While Patient Zero is about as stimulating to look at as a dead spider, comparing her to the other subjects will yield valuable data on how the disease behaves.”

This punk just called me boring. I’ll show him boring. I’ll bore my fist right up his ass!

My eyes flicker open and- Ow! Son-of-a-bison that light burns like a sheep-bucker. How long have been out? A day? Two days? A week? After my corneas stop burning to a crisp, my eyes adjust to the light in the room. It’s all… sterile. White walls, white floors, shiny knives on a table, bright lights, and two shadows looking at me. Oh, I get it. I’m in a hospital. Great. What the hell did I do to end up here?

“Oh my gosh! Look, the patient is waking up! I got to record this down.”

“Well I’ll be. I didn’t think this big lady would be waking up.”

Whoever just called me big is getting the beating of a lifetime!

One of the shadows scurries around in the light. They both look a lot like ponies. Oh boy, pony doctors taking care of me. What lame thing did I do to end up in a pony hospital? I hope my spleen didn’t burst. I’d be the laughing stock of Griffonstone if they found out I ended up in a pony hospital because my insides exploded. No, they won’t know. I got into a fight with a minotaur and he gouged me with his horns. Yeah, that’s what happened.

I open my beak to try to say something, but nothing comes out but a raspy cough. Damn, feels like I tried gurgling sand. How am I going to make a cover story with these doctors? We need to be on the same page if the other griffons are going to believe the minotaur thing. Ponies believe in patient confidentiality, right?

“Stay back Doctor. If you get to close she’ll bite your head off.”

Okay, I don’t think the minotaur story is necessary. By the sounds of it, I got into a fight with these ponies… and lost. Is this prison? Am I in a pony prison? It feels like a prison. They keep insulting me, so they might be prison guards. I hope my crime was badass.

“My entire career is based on studying dangerous animals. I think I know my limits.”

So I’m not a prisoner. I’m an animal, eh? Come here so I can show you how much of an animal I can be!

“Doctor, get back. She’s struggling.”

“Oh, hush your mouth. The patient is strapped down tight. I am perfectly fine.”

Not if I have anything to say about it!

I try to punch him, but there’s something holding my arm down. I yank at it, yank at it some more, and then with a really hard yank, and a loud pop, my arm goes up with little problem.

“Doctor! She’s free! Get away!”

The doctor backs up against a wall. Yeah, you better be scared. Nobody calls me an animal and gets away with it.

The doctor squeals. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve heard a squeal like that before, even from a pig. “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”

Dang, you are just asking for it.

Another hard yank and I’m standing up on all fours. My legs wiggle to and fro as I lumber over to give this doctor pony a lesson he won’t forget.

The doctor pony tries to run away, but I somehow pounce on him before he gets a chance. The pounce surprises me as much as the doctor. My legs feel no where up to snuff.

The doctor pony squirms beneath my knees. No, don’t you dare chicken out on me. You wanna insult me in front of my face, you gotta back yourself up. Learn to choose your fights!

“AHHHH! Help! It’s eating me! Help me!”

“Sweet Celestia, back up! I need back up in here! Patient Zero is tearing Strangeglove apart! I need backup now!”

Tearing him apart? I’m not going that hard on him, am I? It is a one sided fight. It feels like I’m hitting a scoop of ice-cream here. These pony doctors need to gain some muscle mass. They just melt under a few punches.

“Code grey! Is this a code grey? I don’t know, just kill it!”

A red light fills the room, and for a moment the worlds appears crystal clear. The pony doctor is underneath me and…and…

Holy shit, he literally melted! The doctor is just a mush of guts and gore, and I’m sitting in it. What the hell did I do?!

Then the world goes blurry again. The bright lights mix in with blue flashes and I can hear the voices scattered all about.

“Back up! Patient Zero isn’t going down!”

I killed someone, I actually killed someone. Is that why I’m here, because I killed someone? The doctor pony is dead, and maybe there’s another one out there I killed too.

“What in Tartarus, it just ate Sarge! I repeat, it just ate Sarge!”

And I think I’m still killing. This doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel right. I want to go home.

“Gray Alert, this is a Gray Alert. Do not let Patient Zero escape!”

The world clears up again. I tumble through two doors out into a rainstorm. The water runs through my feathers, washing away a layer of dust I didn’t know I had. Thunder rolls in from the distance. The night is cool and violent.

Behind me, a crackling voice yells, “Stop her!”

In my moment of clarity, I feel a sharp sting in the back of my head. I look back and see a team of ponies dressed in black charging at me. The blue glow of their goggles stand out in the darkness of this stormy night. Their horns light up and they pelt me with spell after spell.

I jump back, avoiding a bolt or two, but their aim is incredible. Most of their shots hit me with no problem. It doesn’t help that I’m standing out in the open doing little to avoid them. I need to get out of here. These are starting to sting.

“Patient Zero is on the move. Do not lose her.”

My legs move without me knowing about it. They got minds of their own, and they want to get out of Dodge. I agree with them and dash at what looks like an exit. Bolts fly over me as I weave between the spells. I don’t care what I did. I need to get out of here.

Ten blue-eyed armored ponies jump out and block the exit. The unicorns fire spells at me, and the non-unicorns fire spells with something in their hooves. It’s too dark to see what they’re holding, but whatever it is it all stings the same. These punks have it out for me.

I run the other direction. The pegasi take off and target me from the air. I see no way out. They’ve cornered me.

“Keep at it. It’s slowing down!”

Then my legs speak up. Something surges within them, a powerful force. I don’t know how to describe it, but it soon overwhelms me, then it unleashes its strength.

Either the world is going fuzzy again, or I’m jumping really high right now. Sure, I got my wings, but I swear all this air I’m gaining is from my legs. Just one jump, and I’m far above ground. The blue-eyed ponies look like tiny bouncing blue dots from up here.

One pegasus ducks under me and point-blank fires a spell-thingy at my head. It stings like the rest of them. I’m getting sick and tired of this. I extend my claws forward and divebomb the sucker. The pony is not fast enough to fly out of the way as I sink my talons into his flesh.

Another blur passes, and we both crash into the ground. A loud crunch comes from the pegasus, and he starts melting like the doctor did. Except he doesn’t just melt like a regular old icecube, he melts into me! All his warm flesh and gobblygoop clings to my claws and sinks its way into my flesh. I try waving him off, ripping him away from me, but he just dissolves into me.

“Patient Zero is outside the compound. Stop it before it gets away!”

The rain is pouring. I can’t see five feet in front of me. The pegasus is gone. He’s a part of me now. I don’t know what else to say about it. It felt warm and juicy, like a fresh meal, except absolutely disgusting. Did… did I eat him?

I panic. I run and I panic. Where ever I was, the blue-eyed ponies don’t find me. Sirens blare behind me, so I know they’re looking. I killed someone, and I ate at least two ponies, and I’m not even sure if “ate” is the right word. Am I a monster? Is that why they had me in this prison?

I need some answers, and I am damn sure the blue-eyes aren’t going to give them to me now. I just ran away and didn’t stop.

The world clears up again and I find myself on a sidewalk. These streets, to my surprise, are filled with ponies. I bump into some of them, but they don’t chase me. A few do swear at me. I guess I’m not much of a monster to these ponies, or else they’d be running around screaming or trying to kill me.

There are so many ponies out in the rain. And the buildings, they’re so tall, and they got windows with shops in them. It all looks so familiar. Why are they familiar?

Wait a minute, this is Manehatten. Why am I in Manehatten? I didn’t know ponies kept monsters in Manehatten. No, that can’t be it.

A word, I’m remembering a word, something with an ‘s’. Sock, sold, solid, score, store… Scone! Scone shop! I bake scones, and I’m in Manehatten to open a scone shop! The baking, the grand opening, the food, how did I forget?

More importantly, how did I go from baking scones to eating doctors and blue-eyed ponies? The grand opening wasn’t that bad, was it?