Wrong Hospital Niko Bellic

By: Sorren

Part One Niko sat upon the deck of the helicopter as it circled the Statue of Happiness. He had heard stories of the heart before, dealers on the almighty streets of Liberty speaking of the statue itself being alive. He had never believed them of course, but now he was starting to wonder.

He turned to the helicopter pilot. “Take me in close,” he said to the pilot, his voice tinged with a heavy Serbian accent.

“I’m not exactly sure this is safe!” the pilot yelled back over the whirring of the blades.

“I said take me closer,” Niko replied evenly.

“Whatever you say! It’s you funeral, not mine!” The pilot brought the chopper around until it was hovering over the upper railing of the statue.

“Hold her steady!” Niko called. He stepped out onto the skid of the helicopter and hung over the edge, contemplating the jump. It wasn’t that far, he’d had worse falls. “Thanks for ride!” he yelled to the pilot, and jumped. He landed hard on the balcony.

Slowly, he got to his feet and brushed the dust form his well-worn jeans. He looked up at the pilot and gave him a brief nod. The pilot replied by sporting Niko his middle finger. Niko returned the favor. The pilot veered away and in mere minutes was barely a spec on the horizon.

Niko turned his attention to the door behind him. He tried it, nothing. He walked back to the rail and looked down “Shit,” he muttered. “I realty never thought of way to get down.” He turned back and walked around to the other side of the square balcony. The coffee cup of Lady Happiness reflected the late afternoon sun and the entire statue seemed to gleam brightly. There was another black door on the other side as well. A golden plaque was mounted on the wall to the right of the door.

Niko read it aloud. “Nothing secret hidden here.” He chuckled. That obviously meant the exact opposite of what it read. He reached out a hand to touch the door. But instead, his hand plunged right through it. “What the hell?” He withdrew his hand quickly, inspecting it. Slowly he reached out again and watched in awe as his arm disappeared through the door. Tentatively, he stepped forward. So far, his arm was still there, he just couldn’t see it. With a deep breath he stepped through the door. He was now inside the statue. Ahead was a single ladder spanning the vertical length of the statue. It led up into a small square hole in the roof.

“Well this is big secret,” Niko scoffed. He looked at the ladder. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try. He clasped the ladder in his hands and began to climb. He climbed up past the hole in the roof and entered yet another part of the statue. Now he could see the metal framework of the monument. Big spanning rusty beams encircled him and slowly grew in tighter as he progressed upward.

His phone started ringing. Niko sighed and stopped climbing. He linked an arm through one of the rungs and pulled out his phone with the other. The caller ID read Brucie. “What?” he answered.

“Hey hey! Niko, what do you say we go and—”

Niko hung up the phone. “Not now Brucie,” he muttered and continued his ascent. A quick helicopter ride and he would get over being butthurt. He could hear something now, a steady thumping, not only that, but the space around him was now starting to turn red. “It is not a heart,” Niko said to himself as he climbed on. “It is just big machine to scare pigeons.” But his doubts were increasing as he climbed higher. He reached the top of the ladder. He could hear the steady thumping directly behind him. He could feel it in the ground.

Niko took a deep breath, and turned around. “Holy shit!” He took a rapid step backwards. In front of him was, in fact, a giant heart. It was suspended my many chains and hung out over the abyss. He blinked; it was still there. He rubbed his eyes and opened them again; it was still there. “You have got to be shitting me,” he chuckled to himself. “This evil city actually has heart.” He looked at it for a minute, then for another minute, and another, and another.

“Maybe I can touch it,” he wondered aloud, experimentally holding out a hand. He stopped himself. “Don’t be moron Niko. It is big giant beating heart. What do you think will happen if you touch it?” He shrugged. Niko reached out an arm, but he couldn’t reach the heart. It was still a good four feet away. He looked at the chains supporting the massive organ. “Perfect,” he said. Cautiously, he climbed over the railing of his little platform and placed his feet on one of the metal chains supporting the heart. He found a place for his hands on a higher chain. Slowly he worked his way towards the heart until he was close enough to touch it.

Niko hesitated. “If you want to stop being moron, now would be the time,” he said to himself. But he shrugged off his warning and reached out to touch the beating shape. The second his fingers touched it, the most excruciating shock was sent through every part of his body. He screamed and drew his hand away. But he lost his balance and fell backwards. He managed to catch one of the supporting chains before he fell. He hung there.

Niko chuckled. “You are moron,” he said idly. He screamed out again, more electrical shock running through his body. The chain was shocking him. Panicking, he let go, and he fell, and he fell, and fell.

* * *

Slowly, Niko opened his eyes. He was in a hospital room. Of course, he thought. If he got hurt that’s always where he would wake up. He sat up in the bed, which he noticed was much too small for him. His feet stuck off the end. “What did they put me in child infirmary?” he wondered aloud. Something was off about the room. It was too colorful. Every color was over contrasted. And, was it him, or was the ceiling really low.

“What is this some kind of joke?” he asked himself. His eyes fell upon a picture on the wall ahead. A yellow mini-horse-thing looked back at him. The most bizarre thing was that it was wearing hospital garments and sported a hat with a medical cross on its head.

“Whoa.” Niko rubbed his eyes, but the poster was still there. “I must have fallen asleep at Jacob’s,” he chuckled. “This is some trippy shit.” There was a little cord next to his head. Without thinking, he reached out a hand and pulled it. A bell jingled somewhere in the next room.

He looked down at the gown he was wearing. “Where are my clothes?” he wondered idly. The gown looked patched and mismatched as if someone had sewn a bunch of fabric together in a hurry. “Probably in some shrinky-dink hospital in underground.” Niko shook his head. He really had to stop getting himself into messes like these. The smaller-than-average door opened and a… Niko rubbed his eyes. He didn’t know why he kept doing it, that trick didn’t seem to work. A white horse-thing was walking towards him. She had a pink tale and pink hair ran the length of her neck.

Niko raised a disbelieving finger and pointed at the little horse. “You are little horse.” He chuckled. “Holy shit Jacob what the hell did you do to me?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who Jacob is,” The little horse replied.

Niko blinked. “Did…” he pointed at the horse-thing, then to himself. It nodded. “Little horse is talking to me.” He chuckled again. “I haven’t been this out of it since the stuff from the old country.”

The creature rolled its eyes. Its eyes, they were huge. “Oh, you’re one of them,” she said dully. Well, Niko figured it was a she. She certainly sounded like a girl.

“I am talking to little horse,” he said, disconnected. But it didn’t even really look like a horse. Its head was rounder, not like a horse’s elongate muzzle. The thing seemed to possess mild human-like features. But it still looked like a horse-thing.

“Look,” the thing said, sounding flustered. Niko found it very hard to concentrate. “At least stop calling me little horse, that’s rather insulting. I’m a pony.”

“Okay, whatever you say.” Niko spun his fingers in the air. “I am talking to a pony. But that is no problem. In little while I will wake up with really big headache. And then this will be all better.”

The white pony shook her head. “Sorry, but you really are talking to a talking pony.”

Niko’s mind froze. He looked at the pony, then around the room, then to the pony. She smiled at him. “Bah!” he yelled. The pony shrank back and gave him a sour look. Niko pinched his arm, hard. Nope, the pony was still staring at him. His mind was reeling. If this all was a dream, then it wouldn’t hurt to play along. “Okay,” he asked. “If I am talking to ponies, then where am I?”

“Equestria, or more precisely, Ponyville,” the pony replied evenly.

Niko had no idea what, these places were, or where they were. “Why am I in hospital?”

She shrugged. “We found you just outside of town, face down in a ditch.”

Niko was having trouble believing any of this at all. A thought struck him. If they were ponies… “Okay, if you are ponies, then why are you not scared of me? I am big scary murderer from old country.”

The pony rolled its eyes again. Niko really wished she’s stop doing that. “It’s not like you’re the first human I’ve seen.”

Niko scoffed. “So, do you things, like, abduct people.”

The pony chuckled, “Oh no, not at all. No, humans poof into existence here all the time. They normally don’t stay very long though. Mostly they’re all just a bunch of wimpy kids who stop after the first chapter because nobody liked their self-insert. But once we had Ellis here for almost a week.”

Niko shook his head. “Look pony lady, you are confusing me. You are saying that humans come her all the time. Then why do we not know about…” He made an arm gesture towards the white pony.

She shrugged. Niko didn’t even know how a pony could shrug but it did.

“Look,” Niko rubbed his temples. “Could you go get me my things? I need to get out of here.”

“Let me get right on that.” The pony turned and left the room.

“What the hell is this shit?” Niko muttered to himself. “I am talking to ponies in hospitals.” He laughed. “I am completely losing it. I am going to kill Jacob when I wake up.”

The pony trotted back in with his folded clothes balanced on her back. “Here you are,” she said, laying them down on the nightstand.

Niko reached out and picked up his attire. Not much. Some old work boots, genes, a brown undershirt, and an old leather jacket. He searched through his pockets and produced a wallet and his phone, but nothing else. “Where are guns?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Toys like that are a big no-no here. Some human thought it would be funny to show us what they did. They aren’t here anymore but the rule remains. No human stuff is to be used by humans here. Bad things usually happen. I had to empty your pockets of all the guns you had. Wasn’t very easy. How do you fit a gun as big as me in your pocket?” she asked, looking puzzled.

Niko shrugged. “Big pockets,” he suggested meekly. He dug into the inside coat pocket and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He chuckled happily to himself.

“What’s that?” she asked him.

Niko looked up; the pony was staring at the bottle in his hands with unmasked curiosity. “Um, apple juice,” he improvised. She looked skeptical but dropped her guard. “Now when can I leave hospital?” he asked.

“Right now actually,” she replied.

Niko shook his head, still not believing a word of it. “Get out of here so I can get dressed.” He motioned for the door.

The pony obliged, and headed for the door. She stopped and tuned to face him. “Oh and, one thing. A lot of you guys manage to do something stupid, please refrain from doing so.” Niko gave her a brief nod. The mare left.

After getting fully dressed, Niko stood up. He banged his head on the ceiling. “This is ridiculous.” He groaned. “Am I actually going to believe I am talking to ponies?” He stepped across the room and pulled open to lower-than-average door. The white pony stood outside waiting.

“Follow me,” she said, briskly setting off down the hall. Niko grudgingly followed. She led him down the hall, past various other rooms. Finally they came out into a lobby. Where yet, another pony was sitting behind a desk. This one was brown.

“Checking out our most recent guest,” the white pony said to the brown.

The brown one looked up and his eyes widened a little at the sight of Niko. “Is it the best idea to let him go tromping around the town?” he asked. Niko could barely tell the female ponies from the male ponies. The only way he knew the difference between a he and a she was their voices. But the male one did have more of a boxy shape to him.

She shrugged in response. “I don’t want him here. Besides, he’ll just go out there, wander around for a little while, probably do something stupid, and then he’ll be gone the next day. It’s what happens to all of them.”

“I can hear you,” Niko muttered. The white pony ignored him. “Look, you ponies are starting to make me angry.”

She turned to face him. “Do us all a favor and don’t go throwing a hissy fit, okay.”

Niko glared. Anybody who talked to him like that would get a fist right to the nose. But he couldn’t hit one of these things. He was twice as tall them. Hurting one of these things would be like hurting a puppy. Besides, he didn’t know where he was. Hitting things right now would be a bad idea. He just continued to glare at the pony.

“Fine, do what you want.” The brown one said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He went back to shuffling papers. Niko froze, his gazed fixed on the papers that were floating on their own.

“What is that?” he asked cautiously, pointing a finger at the floating papers.

The brown pony deadpanned. “Um, papers.”

Niko scowled. “No shit, why are papers floating?”

In turn, the brown pony glared at the white one. “You tell him, I have work to do.”

Niko fixed an expecting glance on the little pony. She looked up him. Niko noticed she looked the slightest bit intimidated. “He’s a unicorn,” she said. “He can perform magic and spells.”

Niko threw his arms out in exasperation. “Great, so now the pony things can do magic too.” This was beyond bizzare.

He must have hit his head on something really hard. He didn’t remember anything. All he remembered was liberty city and everything about it. He had no idea why, or how, he was here.

“Oh there are pegasi too,” She added. “They can fly.”

Niko rubbed his temples. “Why do I find you so annoying?” He wondered aloud.

She just shrugged, again. “Now get going.” Niko shot her one last glare and started towards the front door.

“Think he’s going to do something stupid?” The brown pony asked when he was out of earshot.

She nodded. “Probably.”

<So one night I got really bored and thought, “hey, what would happen if some violent video game character ended up in Ponyville?” And Niko Bellic immediately popped into my mind. I plan on making this either a 3 or four part story. Nothing long, just a little project.

…..

<Yeah, I’m going to go write about zombie ponies for a while.

~Sorren