Unmasking the Nightmare

Chapter Eighteen: Goodbye, Pinkie Pie

Eclipse's POV

Muffled voices bounced around me, distorted and echoed as they ricocheted around in my mind. It felt like my brain had been blended and turned to mush, my sandpaper-dry tongue plastered to the roof of my raw mouth. Something tickled my irritated throat and I swallowed thickly, crying out in pain as I coughed up dust, that motion causing my sore body to light up with pain.

I gasped as I unscrewed my shut eyelids, panting as I lifted my head from the damp pillow. As I raised my head, pain pricked my forehead as a bloodied ice pack shifted out of place, smacking the bridge of my nose as it slipped down and plunked against the mattress of the bed I was lying on.

"Please, stay still." A gentle, soothing voice that was girlish drifted from the other side of the room. "You'll only cause yourself more harm. Once I'm finished stitching up your friend, I'll treat you."

"Hm?" I hummed, my brain too fuzzy and foggy to form coherent words. I blinked dumbly, my surroundings blurring and bleeding together. I could see a fuzzy silhouette leaning over a bed backed against the opposite wall from mine, two pink bubbles glued to her head. "Bubblegum."

She laughed softly, genuine and warm. "That's my hair, not bubblegum."

"No?" I furrowed my eyebrows and squinted to get a better look, propping my elbows up against the mattress and sitting up further, grimacing from that motion. "Hair?"

"Yes, that's my hair," She replied patiently, patting one of the pink bubbles on her head to verify, her voice carrying a slight tinge of worry as she mused aloud, "I didn't give you any anesthesia, so you shouldn't be this disoriented. How are you feeling?"

"Head hurts," I mumbled, my tongue thick and heavy in my mouth, the effort of speaking exhausting me. "Where? How?"

"Don't worry, your memory will return. You're still waking up." I could faintly hear footsteps padding across the ground as the blurry figure melted into the compassionate-looking Rebound as she approached my side, swapping out blue medical gloves in exchange for clean ones, wiggling her hands into them and snapping the cuff against her wrists.

I stiffened at the sight, my heart pounding against my chest as Rebound leaned forwards, gently placing a rubber-gloved palm against my chest and pushing me gingerly back to the mattress. "Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you."

"No hurt?" I sighed as my spine pressed against the mattress, my muscles relaxing at her assurance.

"That's right. I'll take good care of you, I promise." Rebound removed her hand from my chest, nodding in gratefulness when she realized I wasn't going to try and fight her. "You got lucky. You almost got buried alive, and you squeaked by with only a concussion and some slight damage to your respiratory system from inhaling too much dust."

"Huh," I whispered, clearing my throat to try and clear some dust particles that had settled there. When that didn't work, I forced myself to cough again, biting the inside of my cheek as I shrieked from the searing pain that laced across my ribs.

"Are you okay? Is it your head?" She unwrapped a roll of gauze from a med kit that sat on a nearby table, slicing a strip off and winding it around my forehead where the ice pack had previously been. I must have gashed my forehead as I fell unconscious after using my telekinesis to hold up the ceiling, but right now, the gash and my concussion were the least of my worries.

"Ribs." I grimaced.

"Your ribs? You injured them? Well, in that case..." Rebound rummaged around in the med kit, producing a pair of scissors and peeling the sheet off my torso. "I should check it out. Don't worry, I'll be gentle."