I stared at the radio in my hands for what felt like centuries. The sun and moon could have cycled twice over and I would not have noticed it. My brain was broken, trying to process the information it was receiving.
Not possible. Not possible. Not possible. My thoughts were stuck in an endless cycle. I shook my head to clear it, and turned the radio over in my hands, seeking any sort of explanation. Any sort of external power source. But there was none. A radio, which all facts of technology told me should not be working. Another impossibility to add to the ever growing list.
I looked out at the waves. The sun was slowly setting. For some reason I took comfort in that, knowing that the passage of time remained unaltered. Everything had started going to hell the moment I was thrown overboard, and my mind made itself up. I needed to get off this island. But that brought up yet another impossibility.
How?
i circled back to the approximate location where I had first awoken. A few body-sized shards of driftwood littered the beach. Definitely not from the ship itself, more likely remnants of cargo. I could string them together as a raft, but I had no string, no adhesives, no paddle. If the ocean decided to become violent again... I didn't want to think about that. I grabbed a piece of driftwood, and hauled it upright. I could use it as a paddle board, but then I'd be at the mercy of sharks. Additionally, I couldn't see any nearby landmass. Why forsake a place of sanctuary for the unknown?
Desperation. Entire wars had been fought on simpler concepts, but I wanted off this damn place. I didn't like how quiet it was. Not a single chirp of birdsong, rustle of woodland animal, there was nothing. That worried me more than anything else, I think. The island could be radioactive for all I knew. Animals sensed those things.
I decided to try to sleep, laying down in a blanket of grass near the sand. Exhaustion crept up and overtook me almost instantly. When I woke, morning was dawning. Barely sunrise. The night had been uneventful. I stood and stretched, realizing I hadn't eaten in over a day now. I wasn't hungry. Nor felt any negative repercussions from my lack of consumption. Again, why? Soon I'd be able to write a book on all the questions I had, but for now it was one less thing to worry about.
Grain of salt, I suppose.
I quickly began binding together driftwood with long reeds of grass, winding them together in simple knots. This was a terrible, terrible idea, but I had no alternative. Desperation drove stronger men than I insane. I left the radio in the sand, intending on leaving behind its ridiculous notion of talking equines. I took one look at the island behind me, and kicked off into the waiting waves, propelling my craft forward with a flat piece of driftwood.
It should have sunk instantly. It should have fallen apart. By all counts, this ridiculous idea should have failed. Yet it sailed forward as sturdy as a canoe from Wal-Mart. It was by this point I began to consider the very real possibility that I was dead, and living in my own personal hell. But why? I'd always been a good person, unless I'd been damned for hitting James O'Neil in the face with an iceball that one winter. Kid had a stupid face anyway.
The raft bounced on the ocean, which was fairly calm this morning. I had never been a religious man, but I prayed. Prayed for anything on the horizon. I had no way to tell which direction I was going, but it wasn't long before a gray mass appeared in the distance. Thank Jesus. I sailed towards it, looking behind me. The island I had left was barely visible, the other grey mass in front.
My strength was renewed by hope, and I pushed forward. I wasn't really sure what to think anymore, people had survived in isolation for far longer than this with far fewer supplies in the past. People who were less creative and less resourceful than I was. But at least they had animals to hunt, a sense of logic and accuracy in the world where everything worked the way it was supposed to. Here, everything was beginning to feel manufactured.
It was real, though. I could feel the heat of the sun as it climbed in the sky, wince at the burning in my arms as they protested my relentless drive to move forward. I could smell and taste the sea as it sprayed into my face and blistered my arms.
Hours passed, and the sun was well past its peak by the time the new landmass was within reachin distance. It may have been no better than the last one, but I wasn't about to stop trying. I sank into waist deep water and trudged towards land.
Well, that was easy. Too easy.
I was feeling rather proud of myself, that is, until I saw the radio lying half buried in the sand. My brain nearly broke in half again. I had gone in a fairly straight line, and arrived at the same place I had left.
In a matter of seconds, whatever reserves of strength and hope I had left disappeared.
"...That's it. I'm dead. I'm in hell." I whispered. What other explanation was there? Some supernatural force refused to give me up. It was just past noon now, I had been on the water for almost eight hours. Nothing had happened in all that time, just paddling. Lots of paddling. The relentless burning in my arms wouldn't let me forget that any time soon. I looked back at my raft, still lodged in the sand. It was a piece of shit, composed of nothing but long reeds and wood. The fact that it had actually worked made talking horses pretty damn believable.
I picked up the radio, dialing into the only frequency which worked. Talking ponies or not, they were the only things keeping me from becoming completely insane, and I doubted even they could that off much longer.
"Hello?" I asked.
"Hi, Jason!" Came the reply. I recognized the one who called herself Lyra.
"...You're really a horse, aren't you?" I asked with a tone of defeat.
"Pony." Lyra corrected. "Are you really human?"
"Last time I checked." I said. "Listen, you don't happen to have anyone experienced in explaining the unexplainable, do you?" I asked. "I'm pretty sure I'm dead."
"Don't be silly, you're not dead." Lyra sounded amused.
"It's the only thing that makes sense. I don't know what to think anymore. By all laws of science and nature, either I'm dead or this island is magical. And magic doesn't exist."
"I disagree." A new voice said, this one hadn't spoken before.
"Great, who's this? Wind Whistler?" I asked. It was the dumbest name I could come up with.
"Don't be ridiculous, Jason. My name is Twilight Sparkle."
I sighed. So this was the 'unicorn' Lyra had told me about. "Alright, not like I have anywhere else to be at the moment."
"Tell me exactly what happened to you, the smallest detail might be important." Twilight said.
I was silent for a moment, knowing damn well how crazy it all seemed. I told her about being thrown overboard, waking up on an island. The lack of batteries in the radio, my attempt at leaving this damn place. Not being able to get away from it. Twilight was quiet through all of it.
"I think I might be able to get you some answers, Jason. And I may even be able to get you home. But you're going to have to do something for me, and you're not going to like it."
"So I'm not dead?"
"You're not dead." Twilight said. "I have a few theories, but I'll need to do some quick research first. I've never encountered this particular predicament before."
Great. Why did that worry me even more? If she was right, whatever little comfort I had in my situation was quickly evaporating. At least if I was dead, I could kind of learn to be okay with that. But if I was alive, that meant talking ponies were real. Magic was real. And I really didn't think I was ready to handle that.
I hesitated. "What am I going to have to do?"
"Assuming I'm right, which I usually am, it's simple, really." Twilight said after a moment. "You have to go back into the storm."