Panzer Lehr

Chapter 4

Muffled sounds, total darkness and a dull beeping. That was all Cadence could hear and feel.

“What happened? where am I?” She though to herself. “I was on the balcony, waving, then...Did I die?”

The dull beeping began to get steadily faster, there were a few more louder muffled noises and something sharp was jabbed into her foreleg. Her thoughts slowly faded and she passed out completely again.

Cadence opened her eyes. And immediately shut them again as an intense white light blinded her.  She tried again, this time opening them slowly. A room slowly faded into view, a pure white room with drab green curtains surrounding her.

“Where am I?” She tried to ask, but all that came out was a quiet wheeze. The curtain was suddenly flung back and two ponies in white lab coats burst in. Cadence would have jumped at this sudden intrusion if a pain in her chest hadn’t made itself apparent at the same moment.

She groaned in pain and leant back against a pillow. A white light shone in her left eye and she blinked, it then switched to her right eye. “Visual functions seem ok, check auditory functions.” There was a tapping behind the left side of her head and one of her ears instinctively flicked back to listen. It happened again on the other side of her head.

“Seems ok.” Said another voice. “How are you feeling your majesty?” Cadence finally got a good look at the two ponies. Both were crystal ponies, one was a very pale silver, almost the colour of diamonds, her cutie mark was a pair of crossed syringes, the other, a brownish stallion, had a cutie mark of a surgeons mask.

She tried to speak, but still no words came out. Just a garbled mess. A glass was lifted to her lips. “Drink this slowly.” Said the mare. Cadence did so, reveling in the feeling of cool water rushing down her parched throat. The glass was quickly drained and lifted away.

“What happened?” Asked Cadence, although her voice was still quite hoarse.

“You had a very near death experience.” Said the stallion. “You suffered a double lung puncture. We were wondering if you’d ever wake up.”

“How...long was I asleep?” Cadence asked, almost dreading the answer. She began to panic as he looked over to a calendar mounted on the wall.

“Four days.” The stallion replied. “You can thank Twilight Sparkle and your husband that you lasted that long. They fed oxygen into your body with their magic for four days without eating or sleeping.” He pulled back the curtain around the bed a bit more and revealed Twilight and Shining Armor lying on beds next to her, both passed out. “They’re suffering from stress, lack of sleep and severe exhaustion. They’ll be ok though.”

“So what happened while I was asleep?” Cadence asked, trying to ignore the pain in her chest, but not quite stifling a grunt of discomfort. The stallion nodded at the mare, who quickly left the room. “Not much, your majesty. When they brought you in you were in really bad shape. We had no means of treating you, none of our surgeons had been trained in the kind of operation you required. So a bunch of those human things went down to the library and tore it apart for medical journals and other things that could be useful.”

The mare returned with a syringe and jabbed it into Cadence’s foreleg. Cadence drew in a sharp breath, but the pain in her chest began to fade. The stallion continued. “So we used the knowledge we could get from the journals to patch you up as best we could. You’ve only been out of surgery 8 hours.”

“You have my thanks for your efforts Mr....” Cadence suddenly realized she did not know the stallion’s name.

“Patch, your majesty. Quick Patch. Doctor and head surgeon of the Empire hospital. My assistant is Miss Sunny Days.” Said the stallion, bowing. The mare did the same.