"So, you're giving me the day off?" Spike asked with an ounce of enthusiasm.

"That is correct, Spike. Now go on, shoo!"

"Perfect!" The little dragon went to leave the library when he stopped, turning back at his caregiver with a suspicious glare. "Wait, hang on... why though?" He stared at her, eyes never straying.

"No, reason." Twilight began ushering the dragon out of the library much to his protest.

"Wait, that's not a-"

The unicorn smoothly guided him right out of the library, quickly shutting the door before he could say anything. She quickly ran upstairs to check if he was leaving through the window. To her relief, he was; he was just casually strolling across the grass of Ponyville. She waited a few minutes before she went to exit the library herself.

It was a fairly rainy coupled with a series of lightning, the unicorn picked up a simple black umbrella and left the premises. The fashionista had sent her a letter to come meet her, wanting to discuss something.

---

"Ah-ha! This was great Twilight. It's unfortunate that you can't stay just a tad a bit longer." Rarity said, taking a sip of her tea. Spike's birthday was coming up in six days and the fashionista had some difficulty in locating a gift for little dragon.

It was just a simple "what should I get him" discussion, various other topics had popped up but it was mainly about that. The meeting had to be cut short however.

"I'm sorry, Rarity but I volunteered to help out at at the hospital. Maybe we could pick this up maybe... uhh-tomorrow? If you're free, obviously." Twilight suggested, getting up from her seat.

"Yes, tomorrow sounds delightful! Sweetie Belle and her little friends will be coming over although but it is no matter."

"Oh? You sure? I can meet up for on another day. Spike's birthday doesn't get here for another six days, I'm sure we can-"

"Nonsense! Tomorrow is perfectly ideal!" The mare elegantly insisted.

"Oh, okay. Well, I will see you then! Take care, Rarity."

"Take care, darling." The fashionista waved her friend goodbye.

Twilight left the boutique and started heading toward the Ponyville hospital. The citizens were carrying out their day-to-day routines as usual, working at the stands, talking amongst each other, pegasus would normally be flying around town today but the unfortunately it was also raining.

Twilight held her umbrella up. Rarity had offered to purchase her a much more "stylish" one but the bookmare insisted that she keep the one she already had.

She saw the hospital in the distance when Pinkie Pie came hopping around the corner. "Oh hey, Twilight!" The party mare was wearing a rainbow-colored umbrella hat. "What'cha doin'?"

"Hi, Pinkie! I was just on my way to the hospital, I volunteered to help out over there."

"On your way to the-oh okay! Can I come too!? I don't have much to do today so I thought 'hey, why don't I come see what my friends are doing' and here I am!" The bubbly mare explained, wouldn't expect any less from the party pony.

"I mean, as long as you're willing to help out I guess it would be okay."

"Of course I'm willing to help out! What? You just think I was gonna come along and just stand by and watch you help sick ponies, all by yourself? That would be selfish of me!"

With a humored grin, Twilight rolled her eyes at the pink pony's shenanigans.

The two mares trotted in pace with one another. The Ponyville hospital was a few more buildings away. As Twilight and Pinkie walked toward it, the bookmare caught a glimpse of a crowd in front of the hospital. Which was weird, why would a crowd of ponies be outside of a hospital? And looking mighty agitated at that.

Twilight and Pinkie got closer and it quickly became apparent that screams were coming from inside the hospital. Naturally, the mares became uneasy as they approached. She saw the expressions in the crowd, a mixture of fear, concern and curiosity; they were all murmuring, talking amongst each other, trying to figure out what's going on.

The screams were much louder now, now that they were right in front of the building. Twilight and Pinkie both shared the same looks the crowd had just displayed. "What is happening in there?" The pink mare muttered, mainly to herself.

"I dunno, I'll go ask," Twilight replied, nonetheless. She looked to one of the ponies in the crowd and her eyes landed on a familiar pale yellow pegasus who looked visibly shaken by the whole situation. Not surprising...

"Fluttershy?" The unicorn called.

As soon as the pegasus had heard her name, her eyes locked with the unicorn. Twilight saw her mood brighten. Seeing somepony familiar within the crowd. "Twilight!"

"Fluttershy? What's going on? Is somepony hurt?" The bookmare inquired with a frown.

"I-I dunno but everypony is saying that a whole room of patients started freaking out and that they began attacking each other."

Twilight paused taking in the information she was just told. Whole room of patients... attack- "Wait, what!? Attacking?"

The timid mare nodded. "All the nurses and doctors are still in there trying to calm them down."

The unicorn quickly thought over her decisions and being Twilight she obviously wanted to help despite the fact that she was feeling uneasy. "Alright, I'm gonna go see what's going on."

"Be careful." Fluttershy muttered.

The unicorn nodded before ushering Pinkie forward.

---

The two anxious trekked down the green messy hallway that was cluttered with medical junk. Empty syringes, blood packs, pieces of paper all over the floor; carts that were thrown aside. All this only made the uneasy feeling in their bodies grow more and more as they continued. The screams coming from the end of the hallway weren't helping either.

They had made it at the end of the hallway, coming to a path leading left or right. The two ponies heard voices coming from their left.

"What exactly do we do? We don't have a whole lot of options!"

"It's better than yours!"

Twilight and Pinkie turned the corner and saw couple of ponies dressed in medical garments standing by a set of two dark wooden doors. It was barricaded by an iron bar and the screams were coming directly from inside that room.

"Excuse me?" Twilight called out, drawing their attention. "I think I may be able to offer some assistance."

"Me too!" Pinkie added.

"What are you doing here!? I thought we evacuated the building already!?" One of the ponies said, a white earth mare with an orchid colored mane.

The others turned their heads toward the two ponies. A caramel unicorn, Twilight recognized him as "Doctor Horse" came over to speak with them. "Could you please wait outside with the others? I'm afraid the hospital's off limits as soon as the situation has been handled."

"I know doctor but I honestly think I may be able to help." Twilight tried reasoning, she heard shuffling coupled witb a series of thuds coming from the other side of the door. Wails and crying were also heard. She didn't want to imagine what could've been happening in the other side of the door.

"We could use the extra help," one of the doctors said, a grey unicorn stallion with a pink mane. "One of us is already injured." Just then, Pinkie noticed the pale yellow earth mare who had a black mane. There was a bandage wrapped around the mare's forehead, a small splotch of crimson seeping through.

Doctor Horse shook his head. "No, it's too dangerous we won't be able to help them if they're-" A shriek came from the other side of the door, interrupting him. "being attacked!"

"I assure you, we'll be perfectly fine." Twilight tried to calm the doctor's nerves. "Me and Pinkie can handle ourselves and we have plenty of times in the past."

"Well, this will be the first."

"The first what?"

"The first situation you won't be able to handle."

"Well, it doesn't seem like you-"

"Ugh! This is not the point here!" The white earth mare from before angrily interrupted. "We need to be figuring out what we should do about the patients, not this random useless spout that you two are having!"

Twilight relented, her irritability suddenly replaced with guilt. She sighed. "Do any of you have a plan?"

Doctor Horse paused for a moment before filling her in. "Initially, the plan was to go in and to sedate everypony but unfortunately we got attacked by the patients. We were forced to leave the room and locked them in to stop them from hurting anypony else." Doctor Horse explained, glancing at the others.

"What exactly happened in there?" The bookmare inquired. She got a some information from Fluttershy but it wasn't too helpful. "Why did they all suddenly go berserk?"

"Calm Touch over there." The caramel doctor gestured to the pale yellow mare. "Was just checking up on a patient when another one started to... tremble."

"Tremble?" Twilight frowned.

"Yeah," Calm Touch replied this time. "I went to go check if the stallion was okay when he flinched away from me. Then... he-he just started shouting. Yelling at me to go away. I tried to calm him down but then he just... tackled me."

"It was hard enough trying to get him off of her then the others started acting the same way." The white mare provided.

Doctor Horse sighed through his nose. "And here we are now. We were just discussing-"

A loud and abrupt bang rattled the door, startling everypony; it was followed by a series of grunts and moans. "I-I...I...JUST STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!" A scream of agony shortly came after.

"Has anypony thought that... t-they could be attacking each other?"

Everypony all threw a look of fear at one another, their hearts stopping at Pinkie Pie's statement. They reluctantly but quickly removed the bar that was barricading the door. They slammed open the door only to come to see the aftermath of a... well essentially it was a crime scene now. It was a sight that would've made Queen Chrysalis flinch. A sight where ponies would voluntarily have a part of their brain removed just to be free of what they saw.

Inside, blood was splattered all over the walls. Piles of red chunky meat were slid across the tile floor but that was not the worst part. In the middle of the room was a stallion pinning another to the floor. Repeatedly, in a wildfire of frenzied fear was bashing the head of the other stallion into the tiles of the floor; painting it in a coat of crimson mixed aside with brain matter and pieces of skull fragments. The sound as the stallion's head was pummeled to the ground was like watermelon being tossed against concrete.

Twilight could do nothing but stare in horror of the scene that was taking place in front of her. Strickened with fear, she stood in place; wide eyed and watched as the stallion bashed the other stallion against the floor over and over again without any motive of stopping.

The victim was... dead.

...but he didn't stop.

All the while the maniacal pony was screaming, yelling out. "GO AWAY! JUST. STAY. AWAY FROM. ME!" His words synchronized with the pummels.

It was only when the doctors had shoved him off of the dead victim, Twilight snapped out of her paralyzed daze. She quickly ran over, kept the stallion locked in place, her magic manifesting around the crazed stallion's hooves. He had been attempting to shield his eyes with them... but from what?

One of the doctors desperately searched for a sedative while the others had the pony restrained.

"Move over! Move over!" The grey stallion came over with a syringe in mouth. He drove the pin into the maniacal stallion's neck, pumping the substance into his bloodstream. After a few moments, the maniac slowly began to drift off and soon after he was napping like a foal.

The relief didn't come. Death was prevalent in the room like an odor. Twilight and Pinkie stared down at the sleeping stallion. Compared to just a few moments ago, he was sleeping soundly with not a care in the world. Whatever he was terrified about, whatever he saw - if the thing he even saw was real - it didn't seem to be affecting his unconscious state.

Turning, they saw the rest of the room. Their eyes being assaulted by a diabolical mess, something sent straight from Tartarus... if not worse. They could feel something icky coming under their hooves, Twilight didn't bother to look down to see what it was.

The room was painted in a chaotic spree of splattered crimson, splotches of blood everywhere and what looked like, meat... or a chunk of flesh was just as consistent.

Then she noticed the bodies...

---

"Twilight, Pinkie!" Fluttershy saw the two mares coming out of the hospital with the rest of the doctors. She noticed the patch of blood at the bottom of their hooves, leaving a trail behind them. While the doctors went to inform the crowd, Twilight and Pinkie stepped off to the side to meet the pale pegasus. She quickly flew over to them, her heart running palpitations. "Are you girls okay!? Are you hurt!?"

It took a moment to register. Twilight couldn't shook the image of those... bodies - if you could even call them that anymore - out of her mind; you could say that it was scorched into her brain like a brand, a hot iron prod with a symbol at the end of it.

"Y-yeah, w-we're okay." Pinkie side eyed Twilight who had a dazed look in her eyes. The party mare was... disturbed. It was frightening enough, making their way toward the room but it was another when they actually saw what was inside. They've faced off against Nightmare Moon, an army of Changelings even stopped the crystal empire from returning but this... this was the most traumatic.

"O-oh but... what is..." the yellow pegasus timidly nodded downward.

Pinkie frowned, tilting her head. "Huh?" She then looked down and realized what she was gesturing at. "O-oh, u-uh... it's just... a bit of... paint! Yeah, it's just p-paint!" The party mare feigned her chirpy attitude although it was easy to tell that she wasn't being sincere. She wasn't going to tell Fluttershy what it actually was. Rainbow? Or Applejack? Maybe but not Fluttershy.

A look of disbelief flashed across the pegasus's face before it changed into a look of dread. She probably knew what it was but Pinkie was going to keep her muzzle shut.

"I'm gonna go home now," Twilight abruptly said, her voice oddly monotone. "I'll see you girls later."

Pinkie and Fluttershy frowned as the unicorn walked off in the direction of her home. The library. "T-Twilight?" The pegasus called but the unicorn didn't respond.

"I-I think it's best to just... leave her be at the moment." Pinkie glanced down at her hooves, it was hard to believe that this was somepony else's blood... on her hooves. "U-um Flutters? I-I'm gonna go home too and g-get some of this... paint off." The party pony quickly sprinted off, not wanting the timid pegasus to see her tears.

---

Twilight flung the door against the frame. Instead of clicking shut, the door merely bounced back from the wood, leaving a tiny gap. She trotted to her bedroom, opening the door and once more closed it in a lackadaisical manner. She trotted upstairs, taking a left into her restroom.

It wasn't too small, the bath was only a few feet in front of her and the sink and counter were to her right. She switched on the bath and began cleaning herself up. The pressure was more than welcoming, raining over her back; calming her senses as if it was washing away her troubles.

She was slowly coming to grips on what happened in the hospital, it was mostly a blur and she just didn't want to think about it. The whole horrid event, It all went by in a flash to even think about. Everything had went so fast with taking down that stallion then having to face that bloodfest of a room.

Twilight had thought about what Calm Touch said. How the stallion had completely blew out of touch with reality and just straight up attacked her. It wasn't just him. The other patients were like that too.

The bookmare spent almost half an hour within the shower when she heard her bedroom door open. She glanced down at the ceramic of the bathtub and saw the faint trail of blood washing away down into the drain.

She levitated the shower head and began feverishly rinsing herself before finally turning off the shower.

"Twilight! Twilight! You here?" She heard the unmistakable voice of Rainbow Dash.

The mare in question stepped out of the tub, grabbed a towel and started scrubbing herself with it.

"Twilight!" She heard Spike's voice next. "Are you okay? F-Fluttershy told me about what happened!"

It was as if everything had stopped once he said that. Twilight's movements had froze for a moment, her heart rate picked up once more. Taking one shaky inhale, the mare hanged the towel on the rack and compelled herself to go downstairs to greet her friends.

She opened the door and made her way downstairs; her friends, Applejack, Rainbow and Rarity were all down there waiting for her. Clearing her throat, she greeted them. "Girls... it's nice to see you."

"Hey, Twi," Applejack solemnly greeted. "We... heard about what happened at the hospital."

"It sounded just horrible! Those... ponies going crazy a-and-"

"Yes Rarity, I was there." Twilight butted in, interrupting the elegant mare. "You don't need to go into detail about it."

The elegant mare sighed. "Sorry, darling."

"What happened at that hospital!? Why did all those ponies go crazy anyway!?" Rainbow Dash asked with her usual, up front and confrontational attitude.

"I don't know, all I know is that they just went crazy. That's it." Twilight went over to her study table, cluttered with books. Some were open, some were closed.

"How are you holdin' up sugarcube? From what Pinkie told me, it weren't all that good." Applejack asked, concerned.

The bookmare sighed. "I-I'm still processing it... i-its just hard to believe that..." she trailed off. All her friends gathered around the distraught mare. The farm pony laid a gentle hoof on her friend's shoulder. "I can't believe that something... s-something like this happened." There were no tears coming from the mare's eyes, just plain shock. Utter disbelief.

"Me neither, darling." Rarity added. "H-how do you suppose we... handle this?"

"I don't know, I just need to relax for a few minutes." Twilight said as stress pumped through her body. The unicorn was thinking about going back to the hospital tomorrow or at least once everything was settled. She wanted to try and speak with... the stallion and asked why... he did what he did. If it was out of malice or he had no control over what he was doing.

He looked genuinely terrified... but of what though?

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